The number of passengers who arrived on cruise ships at maritime ports reached about 900,000 last year, with 35 percent of them being foreign visitors, Taiwan International Ports Corp (TIPC) said on Friday.
Although the number of arrivals was below the pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 1.055 million in 2019, the proportion of foreign visitors has increased, the company said.
In 2019, the number of foreign cruise passengers reached 322,000, which accounted for about 31 percent of the total that year, it said.
Photo courtesy of Taiwan International Ports Corp
In comparison, about 316,000 foreign cruise passengers, or 35 percent of the total, arrived at Taiwan’s maritime ports last year, the company said.
Japanese tourists made up the majority, at 12.2 percent, followed by tourists from the US at 6.7 percent, Germany at 3 percent and South Korea at 2.5 percent.
The Port of Keelung received the most foreign passengers, at 266,000, followed by the Port of Kaohsiung at 35,000.
The cruise ship that brought in the most foreign passengers was the MSC Bellissima, which made port calls between Keelung and Naha, Japan, from January to March last year, and again from November to December, the TIPC said.
The Port of Keelung welcomed 331 visits by international cruise ships and a total of 787,000 passengers, TIPC data showed.
According to the company’s Keelung branch office, the Port of Keelung also saw a significant increase in the number of South Korean tourists last year compared with 2018.
South Korea and Taiwan share similar living standards and are geographically close, offering significant potential for market growth, the office said.
TIPC has already engaged with South Korea’s largest travel agency, Rakuten Travel, twice this year in hopes of continuing cooperation to increase Taiwan-South Korea cruise tourism, the company said.
Looking ahead, TIPC said 572 international cruise ships are expected to visit Taiwan this year, almost a 40 percent rise compared with the 414 port calls last year.
The estimated number of arriving cruise passengers would be about 980,000, representing an approximately 8 percent growth compared with last year, it added.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
Former Taiwan People’s Party chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) may apply to visit home following the death of his father this morning, the Taipei Detention Center said. Ko’s father, Ko Cheng-fa (柯承發), passed away at 8:40am today at the Hsinchu branch of National Taiwan University Hospital. He was 94 years old. The center said Ko Wen-je was welcome to apply, but declined to say whether it had already received an application. The center also provides psychological counseling to people in detention as needed, it added, also declining to comment on Ko Wen-je’s mental state. Ko Wen-je is being held in detention as he awaits trial
RSS