Nearly 40 percent of potential tourists surveyed said they are interested in visiting Taiwan this year, with food cited as the biggest draw, a poll released on Monday by a travel-related news Web site showed.
The findings were part of a report that the Chinese-language Xinmedia, which is affiliated with Lion Travel Service Co (雄獅旅行社), presented during a global travel forum on trends related to travel to Taiwan this year.
Although the report referred to respondents generally as “international tourists,” most participants were Asian, with 33 percent from South Korea; 22 percent from Japan; 17 percent from China, Hong Kong and Macau; and 12 percent from Southeast Asia.
Photo: CNA
The survey showed that more than 50 percent of the respondents planned to travel to Taiwan within the next two years, while nearly 40 percent hoped to visit this year.
Regarding why they wanted to visit Taiwan, the top three reasons cited by respondents were Taiwan’s specialty foods (60.7 percent), natural scenery (43.9 percent) and safe environment (22.8 percent).
Among those interested in traveling to Taiwan, 38 percent said they would visit through custom tour packages, 35 percent said they would purchase one-day tours in Taiwan through online travel platforms and 27 percent said they would opt for group tours arranged by travel agencies.
Nearly 40 percent of the respondents said they were willing to spend more than US$1,000 on a trip to Taiwan and were willing to spend more for restaurants, accommodation and activities that offer localized experiences.
The survey also found that 50 percent of respondents who wanted to visit Taiwan would stay for three to five days, followed by 23 percent who would stay one to two days and 17 percent who would stay for five to seven days.
The top five tourist destinations cited in the survey were Taipei (74.2 percent) and Kaohsiung (32.8 percent), followed by New Taipei City, Tainan and Hualien County, the survey found.
The most popular travel experience cited was “night market shopping” (43.4 percent), followed by city tours and green tourism, while the most popular food was xiaolongbao, small steamed dumplings.
The choices of the relatively small number of European and American respondents differed significantly from those of Asian tourists.
They said they would prefer to spend seven to 10 days in Taiwan, with Taitung County and outlying islands given as the most popular tourist destinations, Xinmedia said in the report.
The survey was conducted between Jan. 3 and Feb. 9, with 3,011 valid questionnaires collected.
CHIP WAR: Tariffs on Taiwanese chips would prompt companies to move their factories, but not necessarily to the US, unleashing a ‘global cross-sector tariff war’ US President Donald Trump would “shoot himself in the foot” if he follows through on his recent pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese and other foreign semiconductors entering the US, analysts said. Trump’s plans to raise tariffs on chips manufactured in Taiwan to as high as 100 percent would backfire, macroeconomist Henry Wu (吳嘉隆) said. He would “shoot himself in the foot,” Wu said on Saturday, as such economic measures would lead Taiwanese chip suppliers to pass on additional costs to their US clients and consumers, and ultimately cause another wave of inflation. Trump has claimed that Taiwan took up to
A start-up in Mexico is trying to help get a handle on one coastal city’s plastic waste problem by converting it into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. With less than 10 percent of the world’s plastics being recycled, Petgas’ idea is that rather than letting discarded plastic become waste, it can become productive again as fuel. Petgas developed a machine in the port city of Boca del Rio that uses pyrolysis, a thermodynamic process that heats plastics in the absence of oxygen, breaking it down to produce gasoline, diesel, kerosene, paraffin and coke. Petgas chief technology officer Carlos Parraguirre Diaz said that in
Japan intends to closely monitor the impact on its currency of US President Donald Trump’s new tariffs and is worried about the international fallout from the trade imposts, Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato said. “We need to carefully see how the exchange rate and other factors will be affected and what form US monetary policy will take in the future,” Kato said yesterday in an interview with Fuji Television. Japan is very concerned about how the tariffs might impact the global economy, he added. Kato spoke as nations and firms brace for potential repercussions after Trump unleashed the first salvo of
SUPPORT: The government said it would help firms deal with supply disruptions, after Trump signed orders imposing tariffs of 25 percent on imports from Canada and Mexico The government pledged to help companies with operations in Mexico, such as iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), shift production lines and investment if needed to deal with higher US tariffs. The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday announced measures to help local firms cope with the US tariff increases on Canada, Mexico, China and other potential areas. The ministry said that it would establish an investment and trade service center in the US to help Taiwanese firms assess the investment environment in different US states, plan supply chain relocation strategies and
RSS