The Tourism Bureau has set a target of 6 million tourist arrivals this year, adding that tourism statistics from January to June suggest the nation is likely to reach the goal.
Taiwan received 2,688,928 visitors from January to June, almost half the amount over the same period in 2019, when 5,977,259 visitors were recorded, Acting bureau Director-General Chou Ting-chang (周廷彰) said in a recent interview.
Visitors from nations such as Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam were either on par with or exceeded pre-COVID-19 numbers over the same period, Chou said.
Photo: CNA
Japanese visitors are also returning, and the European and US markets are also performing relatively well, he said
The No. 1 source of visitors from January to June were from Hong Kong and Macau, followed by Japan and South Korea in second and third place respectively, the bureau said.
Chou said the number of South Korean tourists “exceeded expectations,” likely as a result of tourism campaigns the bureau launched in that country that involved recruiting South Korean celebrity couple Kim Jae-woo and Cho Yu-ri to promote Taiwan, and taking advantage of South Korean travel and social media habits.
Based on data from the first six months of this year, Taiwan is likely to meet the bureau’s target of 6 million by the end of this year, even without visitors from China, Chou said.
Beijing has maintained a ban on tour groups coming to Taiwan, even after announcing on Thursday that it had added another 78 countries to the list of destinations Chinese tour groups can visit since easing COVID-19 travel restrictions in January.
To boost tourism in the post-COVID-19 era, travel packages are also being designed to help operators in Taiwan’s tourism industry, the bureau said.
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