Business News
Taiwan's tourist figures up due to influx of Chinese visitors
Aug 3, 2009, 7:41 GMT
Taipei - The number of overseas visitors to Taiwan surged 10.4 per cent to 2.1 million in the first half of 2009, spurred by an influx of Chinese tourists, the Tourism Bureau said Monday.
About half of the total, one million, were tourists, up 28.1 per cent, while 381,000 were business visitors, down 18.6 per cent. The rest were foreigners of other categories, like foreign workers, the Tourism Bureau said in its monthly bulletin.
Although the number of tourists from most countries fell, including a 53-per-cent drop of South Korean tourists, the number of Chinese tourists continued to surge thanks to fast-improving cross- strait ties.
In the January-June period, Taiwan received 251,273 Chinese tourists, up 711 per cent from the same 2008 period. The number of Chinese business visitors rose 123 per cent to 30,894.
The report shows that out of all the foreign tourists and business visitors (2.1 million), nearly a quarter (472,425) came from China.
Taiwan opened its door to Chinese tourists on July 4, 2008 when it launched weekend charter flights with China, ending six decades of ban on Taiwan-China air links.
The weekend charter flights were expanded to daily charter flights in December and are expected to become regular flights on August 31.
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