Visiting Japanese lawmaker Keiji Furuya on Thursday said he intends to lobby local education authorities in Japan to choose Taiwan as a destination for high school graduation trips.
At a press conference in Taipei, Furuya said he hoped to build on the positive experience of the Kyoto Tachibana Senior High School Band, which performed at last year’s Double Ten National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Office Builing in Taipei.
Furuya said he believed the band members had become supporters of Taiwan since visiting the country, adding that he hoped to build on this by persuading local education committees to include Taiwan as a destination for graduation trips.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
As the chairman of the Japan-Republic of China Diet Members’ Consultative Council, a nonpartisan parliamentary group, Furuya said one of his primary objectives was to promote tourism to Taiwan.
Furuya added that an organization composed of heads of Japanese cities, towns and villages, had reached out to the council about establishing a mechanism for future exchanges, which would also contribute to driving tourism growth in Taiwan.
Japanese visitor numbers to Taiwan from January to May was 265,653, while the number of Taiwanese visitors to Japan was 1.4 million, the Tourism Bureau said.
Furuya arrived in Taiwan on Tuesday after joining a delegation led by Legislative Yuan Speaker You Si-kun (游錫?) on its return ferry journey from Yonaguni, Japan’s westernmost inhabited island.
Following the press conference, Furuya said that he planned to have lunch with You and former speakers Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) and Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), before flying back to Japan later on Thursday.
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