The government would target the Indian corporate incentive market in a bid to reach its target of 10 million annual tourists to Taiwan, Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Trust Lin (林信任) said yesterday.
However, to achieve that aim, direct flights to India need to resume, he said.
Flights were canceled during the COVID-19 pandemic and have not been relaunched, and this has made travel between the two countries not as convenient as before, Lin said.
Photo: Tsai Yung-jung, Taipei Times
In the interim, to spur tourism from India, the administration set up a Taiwan Tourism Service Office in Mumbai earlier this year, and participated in India’s business travel exhibition, he said.
“On June 20 this year, we invited operators from the Indian tourism industry to Taiwan for the first time,” Lin said.
Before the pandemic, one Indian enterprise originally planned to have 4,000 employees come to Taiwan, he said, adding that the plans had to be canceled due to COVID-19.
“Taiwanese electronics brands are also very popular in India, and there are many local suppliers. If an Indian business planned a trip to Taiwan, it would bring a lot of tourists,” he said.
Lin said that the Tourism Administration has been busy promoting incentive travel in many overseas markets, hoping to attract companies to travel to Taiwan.
“However, a big problem facing the Indian market in particular is that direct flights have not yet resumed, and that is something we will have to work on,” he said.
Separately, regarding tourism subsidies for domestic travel to earthquake-hit Hualien, Lin said that the details have yet to be worked out, but he encouraged the public to travel there more.
Asked whether Yilan would also be included as an eligible destination for subsidies, Lin said that it was unlikely.
Over the Dragon Boat Festival long weekend, Yilan’s booking rate is close to average, and its performance during the peak tourist season has been “very good,” he said.
“We will continue to monitor the situation and determine whether Yilan will be included,” he added.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires