Taiwan sees 5.6 rise in foreign visitors in first half of 2008

Jul 25, 2008, 12:31 GMT

Taipei - The number of foreigners visiting Taiwan rose 5.6 per cent to 1.9 million from January to June, amid Taiwan's efforts to find ways to lure more foreign tourists, the government said Friday.

The Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said that of the 1.9 million foreigners, 44.7 per cent were tourists, 24.5 per cent were business visitors and 30.8 per cent were foreigners entering Taiwan for other purposes.

However, some tourism industry analysts accuse the government of stretching the tourism numbers, because the official tally covers not only tourists and business visitors, but also foreign workers, foreign spouses of Taiwan citizens and foreign students.

Currently there are about 370,000 foreign workers and maids in Taiwan, coming from Southeast Asian countries.

During the same January-June period, 4.3 million Taiwanese went abroad for sightseeing and other purposes, down two per cent year-on- year, the central statistics office said.

The sharp gap between inbound visitors and outbound tourists makes Taiwan one of the few developed nations which see more people going out than foreigners coming in.

The reasons for Taiwan's sluggish tourism include its poor tourism facilities, inadequate promotion and five-decade ban on sea and air links with China, which will soon become the world's top source of outbound tourists.

To reverse the trend, Taiwan on July 4 opened weekend charter flights with China and opened its door to Chinese tour groups.

President Ma Ying-jeou from the China-friendly KMT party hopes the weekend charter flights will be extended to daily charter flights and eventually to regular flights.

Taiwan hopes that in future, the island can receive an average of 3,000 mainland Chinese tourists each day, adding one million to the total number of Taiwan's inbound tourists each year.