Foreigners in Taiwan ranked Taipei the most livable city in the nation, with transportation convenience and job opportunities cited as key factors, a survey released yesterday by the Tourism Innovation Association of Taiwan showed.
Ninety-six percent of foreigners in Taiwan consider Taipei the best place to live in the country, followed by Taoyuan at 65.3 percent and New Taipei City at 63.6 percent.
The main considerations were job opportunities, cited by 59.5 percent of the respondents, followed by transportation convenience (54.9 percent), education resources (41.0 percent), environment and scenery (37.0 percent), and tourism and cultural assets (32.9 percent), the poll showed.
Photo courtesy of the Tourism Innovation Association of Taiwan
Taipei’s most attractive aspects were transportation convenience, cited by 81.4 percent of the respondents, followed by job opportunities (67.4 percent), cultural diversity (45.3 percent), education resources (26.2 percent) and language services (22.1 percent), it showed.
Forty-two percent of foreign nationals said they came to Taiwan for work, while 35.8 percent said they visited for tourism and 16.4 percent for study.
More than two-thirds said they had been in Taiwan for more than a year, which pointed to the country’s growing appeal as a long-stay destination, rather than just a short-term travel spot, the poll found.
Taipei’s strong performance reflects its mature infrastructure, multilingual environment and vibrant cultural scene, Tourism Innovation Association of Taiwan chairman Ringo Lee (李奇嶽) said.
Foreigners gave high satisfaction ratings for Taiwan’s transportation, healthcare, education and social environment, with more than 90 percent describing their overall experience as “satisfactory” or “very satisfactory,” Lee said.
Further improvement of Taipei’s language services, its promotion of cross-cultural exchanges and an expansion of international education resources could help cement its position as one of the most livable cities in Asia for foreign nationals, he added.
The online survey was conducted from Sept. 16 to Oct. 2, collecting 519 responses from foreign nationals from China, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong and South Korea.
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