TAIWAN - hopes to continue its tourism success story in 2007

eTN Asia, 31-1-2007

After witnessing reasonable hike in foreign tourists arrivals and foreign exchange earnings, the Tourism Bureau in Taiwan isn’t ruling out the possibility of a record number of tourists in 2007. And for that to happen, a lot would depend upon government lifting restrictions on visitors from China.
The Tourism Bureau said that its target for 2007 is 3.75 million tourists. But it also says that figure could be higher if more Chinese visitors are allowed.
Foreign tourists made more than 3.51 million visits to Taiwan last year, up 4.19 percent from the previous year. In December, the number of tourists was 320,000, setting a single month record. Officials estimate that the production value of tourism last year amounted to NT$372.5 billion (US$11.35 billion), up 4.6 percent from 2005.
A spokesperson from Tourism Bureau said, “This year if we can smoothly relax restrictions on visitors from China, we estimate we could get four million tourists. We had around 100,000 visitors from China last year. So this year if there is a quota for 1,000 Chinese tourists per day, we might well see a further 250,000.”

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