Sun, Feb 23, 2025 page2

• Lukang ranked top tourist spot, east fails to make list

  RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth

  • By Wu Liang-yi and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer
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  Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said.

  The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office.

  Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said.

  

  An aerial view of the Lukang Old Street in Changhua County is pictured in an undated photograph.

  Photo coutesy of the Changhua County Government

  The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs — the nation’s fourth-most popular attraction with 12.7 million visitors last year — did not appear on the list before, it said.

  The government uses people counters, infrared sensors, turnstiles, ticket sales, parking records, telecom data, airport and harbor logs, and commercial records to track the number of travelers, the Tourism Administration said.

  Sourced from local governments and private enterprises, the data were annually compiled at the administration for publication, it said.

  The Lukang historical area, Wenhua Road Night Market and Taoyuan’s Laojie Riverside Park (老街溪沿岸步道) were new additions to the top 10 list, it said.

  Beigang Chaotian Temple (朝天宮) in Yunlin County, Songshan Cultural and Creative Park (松山文創園區) in Taipei, Mitsui Outlet Park in New Taipei City and Yijhong Street Commercial Area (一中商圈) in Taichung were in the top 10 ranking consecutively, it said.

  Eastern Taiwan’s tourist attractions did not manage to reach the top 20, it said.

  Last year’s survey of visitors showed a significant rise in tourism across the broad, Tourism Administration Director-General Chou Yung-hui (周永暉) said yesterday.

  The number cannot be utilized to determine if visitors stayed overnight after visiting an attraction, which is significantly more beneficial to the economy than one-day visits, he added.

  More than 70 percent of domestic tourists made one-day trips, and the ministry’s priority is to make people stay overnight, Chou said.

  Providence University associate professor of tourism Huang Cheng-tsung (黃正聰) said the Tourism Administration’s data showed that tourism increased by 35 percent last year.

  Newly created attractions and existing ones accounted for 15 percent and 20 percent of that increase respectively, he said.

  The end of the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the rise in tourism, but more refined technology for counting the number of people visiting a place might partially account for the gains, Huang said.

  Counting Taipei 101’s visitors by the ticket sales of its observatory — as was done previously — would result in a much lower number than using telecom data to measure the flow of people in the area, he said.
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