The Tourism Bureau plans to launch a campaign to attract Muslim tourists with the target of luring 2,000 Muslims annually in the initial years, a newspaper reported yesterday.
The bureau held a seminar yesterday to introduce the untapped market of Muslim tourists to local travel agents and to discuss strategies that would help attract more Muslim tourists, the United Daily News said.
“There are millions of Muslims in the world who live in India, Malaysia, the Middle East and Arab countries. The potential is huge,” bureau official Liu Hsi-lin (劉喜臨) was quoted as saying.
PHOTO: CHANG CHIA-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
REPRESENTATIVES
He was joined by some 150 representatives from hotels, restaurants, recreational farms and the local Muslim community.
“Today’s seminar is just the start of a series of efforts that the Tourism Bureau will make to tap into the huge Muslim tourist market,” Liu said.
The report said Taiwan has designed three package-tour routes for Muslim tourists and will upgrade facilities at these tourist spots to meet the needs of Muslim visitors.
Taiwan has 60,000 native Muslims as well as 150,000 Muslim workers from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. There are six mosques around the nation.
Attracting Muslim tourists is part of plans to boost inbound tourism, which has been hurt by the global economic downturn.
Last year, the nation saw 3.84 million foreign visitors, falling short of its goal of 4 million.
HALAL
In addition to inviting international Muslim clerics and experts to carry out on-site inspections and plan special itineraries for Muslim tourists, the Chinese Moslem Association in Taiwan is also planning to launch a Halal certification system so that every Muslim visitor can rest assured that they are eating foods consistent with their faith in Taiwan.
Food companies are also being encouraged to produce and export Halal food products to Muslim countries, the report said.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
The Chinese military has boosted its capability to fight at a high tempo using the element of surprise and new technology, the Ministry of National Defense said in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) published on Monday last week. The ministry highlighted Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) developments showing significant changes in Beijing’s strategy for war on Taiwan. The PLA has made significant headway in building capabilities for all-weather, multi-domain intelligence, surveillance, operational control and a joint air-sea blockade against Taiwan’s lines of communication, it said. The PLA has also improved its capabilities in direct amphibious assault operations aimed at seizing strategically important beaches,
‘MALIGN PURPOSE’: Governments around the world conduct espionage operations, but China’s is different, as its ultimate goal is annexation, a think tank head said Taiwan is facing a growing existential threat from its own people spying for China, experts said, as the government seeks to toughen measures to stop Beijing’s infiltration efforts and deter Taiwanese turncoats. While Beijing and Taipei have been spying on each other for years, experts said that espionage posed a bigger threat to Taiwan due to the risk of a Chinese attack. Taiwan’s intelligence agency said China used “diverse channels and tactics” to infiltrate the nation’s military, government agencies and pro-China organizations. The main targets were retired and active members of the military, persuaded by money, blackmail or pro-China ideology to steal
RSS