More than 120,000 people from Taiwan traveled to the US between January and April, with those visiting for tourism rising by 12.3 percent from the same period last year, US official statistics showed.
A total of 124,293 Taiwanese traveled to the US in the first four months of the year, making Taiwan the 18th-largest source of the US’ visitors, Visit USA Committee Taiwan head Brenda Tang (唐靜儀) said at a quarterly meeting of the committee, citing data from the US National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO).
Notably, the number of Taiwanese visitors who arrive for tourism, business and education purposes showed significant growth, with visits for tourism alone increasing by 12.3 percent compared with the same period last year, Tang said.
Photo: Tsai Yun-jung, Taipei Times
Favorable exchange rates, the launch of Starlux Airlines’ new route to Ontario, California, and EVA Airways’ upcoming service to Dallas later this year should all contribute to further growth, she said.
The goal is to restore visitor numbers to at least 80 percent of pre-COVID-19 levels, she said.
NTTO data showed that 499,520 Taiwanese visited the US in 2019, compared with 398,813 last year.
However, Tourism Administration figures showed that outbound departures of Taiwanese to the US were already close to reaching pre-COVID-19 levels last year, with departures totaling 532,130.
Outbound departures to the US in 2017, 2018 and 2019 prior to COVID-19 were 574,512, 569,180 and 550,978 respectively, data showed.
Tang said the US would bolster promotional efforts in Taiwan, including participating in the Taipei International Travel Fair (ITF) and the Tainan Travel Fair, both slated for November.
Meanwhile, Brand USA Taiwan representative Milane Tsai (蔡璧如) said US tourism marketing would adopt a multifaceted approach, including physical and virtual seminars, trade partner training, joint marketing with airlines and trade show marketing.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS