The Tourism Administration yesterday said it is establishing tourism offices in Jakarta, Mumbai and Paris to attract more travelers from Southeast Asia, South Asia and Europe.
About 6.4 million international travelers visited Taiwan last year, the agency said, adding that it aims to draw 12 million international tourists this year, which is slightly above the pre-COVID-19 pandemic level.
The office in Mumbai is scheduled to open in the first week of next month, while the Jakarta office is to commence operations at the end of next month, Tourism Administration Director-General Chou Yung-hui (周永暉) told a news conference in Taipei.
Photo: Ting Yi, Taipei Times
The office in Paris is to be established around the middle of this year, he said.
Last year, the agency opened its 16th overseas office in Busan, South Korea, Chou said.
It is also considering opening a new office in Vancouver, Canada, by the end of this year and evaluating the possibility of opening a new office in Stockholm, Sweden, he said.
“We are aiming to have 2 million Japanese visitors this year. Before the pandemic, about 2.1 million Japanese tourists came to Taiwan. Of the 6.4 million international tourists who came to Taiwan last year, about 940,000 were from Japan,” he said.
Attracting Japanese tourists would be a challenging task, Chou said.
Before the pandemic, only 23 percent of Japanese had passports, with the percentage dropping to 18 percent after the pandemic as many passports have expired, he said.
“We will continue to encourage Japanese middle-school students to visit Taiwan for their overseas school excursions,” he said.
“Japanese tourists who apply for a passport for the first time or have them renewed would receive discounts when they purchase tickets to Taiwan from Taiwanese airlines,” he said, adding these special offers could be available in the second quarter.
As Osaka is to host the World Expo 2025, the agency would intensify its tourism campaign in Japan, and encourage tourists from Europe, Australia and New Zealand to stop by Taiwan before or after the expo, Chou said.
Meanwhile, the number of tourists from Muslim-majority nations in Southeast Asia and from California could potentially exceed pre-pandemic levels with the increased tourism campaigns in these areas, he said.
The arrival of Chinese tourists would certainly help the agency reach its goal for international tourists, he said.
“Starting on March 1, the government would allow Taiwanese travel agencies to organize tours to China. We hope that Beijing would also allow Chinese tourists to come to Taiwan. This would increase the mutual understanding of people across the Taiwan Strait. We should be positive about such an interaction,” Chou said.
Details of the new policy are to be announced next month, he added.
Of the 12 million international tourists that the agency is aiming to attract this year, about 2 million would come from China — close to pre-pandemic levels, Chou said.
“Each market has its base level. We hope that some markets could perform better to cover for others,” he said.
Of the 11.86 million international tourists who visited Taiwan in 2019, 2.71 million were from China, 2.16 million were from Japan, 1.59 million from Hong Kong and 1.24 million from South Korea.
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