Taiwan has been named this year’s “Favorite Adventure Destination” by US Web site Trazee Travel.
Readers of Trazee Travel, which provides reviews and news on the latest trends for travelers aged 25 to 40, voted on the winners for Favorite Adventure Destination and other categories from December last year to May, the site said.
Commenting on the selections, Lin Yi-cheng (林宜錚), head of the Tourism Bureau’s Los Angeles office, on Friday said that in the post-COVID-19 era, the number of arrivals from the US and Canada has been rising.
Photo courtesy of the Tourism Bureau
As many visitors from North America favor outdoor activities, the Tourism Bureau has integrated resources nationwide to come up with “green trip itineraries” that give an introduction to Taiwan’s culture and attract social media influencers to the country, Lin said.
Data compiled by the bureau showed that 270,000 tourists from the US and Canada visited Taiwan in the first six months of this year, which is 75 percent of the 360,000 North American travelers that visited in the first half of 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic, indicating that the tourism market is recovering quickly, Lin added.
To attract more young visitors from North America, the bureau has diversified its programs to cover a wide range of areas such as culture, ecology, food and shopping to meet travelers’ demands and provide them with unique experiences in Taiwan, Lin said.
For example, Songboling Visitor Center (松柏嶺遊客中心) in the south of Nantou County’s Baguashan (八卦山), one of the nation’s most important tea growing areas, launched a program on using “six senses” while tea tasting, Lin said.
In the program, visitors learn how to analyze the tea as its infused, smell the tea, hear the sound of the leaves immersing in the hot water, touch the leaves, drink the tea and feel how it warms the chest, Lin said.
The program is expected to help visitors learn how Nantou grows tea and how to respect nature, Lin said.
Trazee Travel named Seoul “Favorite Worldwide City” for the second year in a row, while Greece took the title of “Favorite Country” for the fourth consecutive year.
Tahiti was named “Favorite Honeymoon Destination” for the fourth consecutive year. New Orleans, Louisiana, was named “Favorite Foodie City” and Santa Fe, New Mexico, “Friendliest City.”
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