A tourism program that would offer cash incentives to foreign nationals to visit Taiwan is scheduled to begin on April 15, but many aspects of the plan have not been finalized, Tourism Bureau Deputy Director-General Trust Lin (林信任) said yesterday.
The bureau plans to distribute 500,000 NT$5,000 vouchers to foreign nationals visiting Taiwan if they meet certain criteria, such as arriving individually and not as part of a tour group, Lin told a news conference to mark Travel Safety Awareness Week, which begins tomorrow.
The vouchers might be distributed through a lottery system, but the specifics are being discussed, Lin said.
Photo: Ting Yi, Taipei Times
It was also unclear whether business travelers would be eligible, or if the vouchers would only go to leisure travelers, he added.
Visitors would be able to use the vouchers — which could take the form of a stored-value card or other medium — for hotels, shopping, transportation and dining, the bureau previously said.
The bureau said it plans to also award travel agencies NT$10,000 for every tour group of eight to 14 travelers it brings to Taiwan, and NT$20,000 for larger groups, with up to 90,000 tour groups expected to receive a subsidy.
Taiwan is hoping to attract 6 million overseas visitors this year, the bureau said.
Lin said that by the end of this month, about 1 million foreign visitors are expected to have arrived in Taiwan since January.
In the three years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Taiwan averaged about 11.2 million overseas visitors per year, but those numbers plummeted to about 1.38 million in 2020, 141,000 in 2021 and 895,000 last year, including 302,100 in December.
Separately, Lin also urged the public to use only legal campsites when spending the night outdoors during their travels.
About 1,500 illegal campsites exist in Taiwan, although the bureau is working with operators to bring them up to code, he said.
Ten percent of each hectare of farmland or forest can be used as campground, but the area must not overlap with environmentally sensitive areas, the bureau said.
Local governments have been asked to search for illegal campsites and impose fines of NT$60,000 that can be repeatedly issued on operators who fail to comply, it added.
Additional reporting by Ting Yi
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday that it will revoke the dependent-based residence permit of a Chinese social media influencer who reportedly “openly advocated for [China’s] unification through military force” with Taiwan. The Chinese national, identified by her surname Liu (劉), will have her residence permit revoked in accordance with Article 14 of the “Measures for the permission of family- based residence, long-term residence and settlement of people from the Mainland Area in the Taiwan Area,” the NIA said in a news release. The agency explained it received reports that Liu made “unifying Taiwan through military force” statements on her online
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday that it is looking to hire 8,000 people this year, at a time when the tech giant is expanding production capacity to maintain its lead over competitors. To attract talent, TSMC would launch a large-scale recruitment campaign on campuses across Taiwan, where a newly recruited engineer with a master’s degree could expect to receive an average salary of NT$2.2 million (US$60,912), which is much higher than the 2023 national average of NT$709,000 for those in the same category, according to government statistics. TSMC, which accounted for more than 60 percent
Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢), a Taiwanese businessman and deputy convener of the nation’s National Climate Change Committee, said yesterday that “electrical power is national power” and nuclear energy is “very important to Taiwan.” Tung made the remarks, suggesting that his views do not align with the country’s current official policy of phasing out nuclear energy, at a forum organized by the Taiwan People’s Party titled “Challenges and Prospects of Taiwan’s AI Industry and Energy Policy.” “Taiwan is currently pursuing industries with high added- value and is developing vigorously, and this all requires electricity,” said the chairman
RSS