Nearly 800 Indian tourists are to arrive this week on an incentive tour organized by Indian company Asian Painted Ltd, making it the largest tour group from the South Asian nation to visit since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The travelers are scheduled to arrive in six batches from Sunday to Feb. 25 for five-day tours, the Tourism Administration said yesterday.
The tour would take the travelers, most of whom are visiting Taiwan for the first time, to several tourist sites in Taipei and Yilan County, including tea houses in Taipei’s Maokong (貓空), Dadaocheng (大稻埕) and Ximending (西門町) areas. They would also visit Taipei 101, Taipei Zoo and a beach in Yilan County’s Dongao (東澳), the agency said.
Photo: Tsai Yun-jung, Taipei Times
The agency estimated that the group could create at least NT$30 million (US$912,936) in economic benefits, adding that their visit is an indicator of significant progress in Taiwan’s tourism market.
India has a high demographic dividend, as it has the world’s largest population, the agency said.
Its rising number of nouveau riche and business travelers, coupled with the surge in outbound travel after the pandemic, makes the South Asian nation the most valuable tourism market with a huge growth potential, it said. Last year, India recorded about 30 million outbound visits.
To facilitate the growth of Indian tourists, the agency established a Taiwan Tourism Information Center in Mumbai in February last year, which has been seeking partnerships with travel agencies, and inviting news media and Internet celebrities to visit Taiwan, it said.
Mumbai-based Axplore Travelplus, the travel agency organizing the incentive tour, came to scout potential travel routes in June last year, the agency said.
Axplore Travelplus said at the time that Taiwan could be an ideal destination for Indian tourists.
The agency has also established Taiwan tourism centers in Jakarta, Paris, Vancouver and Manila last year as part of its plan to expand sources for the inbound tourism market, Tourism Administration Director-General Chou Yung-hui (周永暉) said.
“We are to upgrade the Taiwan Tourism Information Center in Mumbai into a branch office of the Tourism Administration before the end of this year, which would be entrusted with the task of exploring the potential of travelers who come to Taiwan for meetings, conferences, exhibitions and incentive tours in the short term. In the long run, we would target the general public in India as a potential source of inbound tourists,” he said.
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