Slump in Inbound M’land Tourists: Over 2 Million Families Impacted

 A Commentary

Slump in Inbound M’land Tourists: Over 2 Million Families Impacted

Source: China Times

August 28, 2019

The Mainland’s suspension of individual tourism to Taiwan, starting August 1, has frustrated Taiwan’s tourism industry. Yao Ta-kuang (姚大光), Chairman of the Taiwan Strait Tourism Association, estimated that the total number of inbound Mainland tourist man-trips, both individual tourists and tour group visitors, would drop by 1 million by the end of the year. Yao went on to say that according to Mainland tourists’ past consumption, Taiwan would suffer losses amounting to NT$35 billion (approx. US$1.12 billion) in tourism volume and revenue.

Yao sighed, saying that “the tourism industry has turned into a sacrificial lamb in the cross-Strait wrestling match.” Yao urged leaders across the Strait to ponder over the matter on the grounds that this was not a small thing as a total of 2 million people worked in the Taiwan tourism industry, meaning that the slump in the number of inbound Mainland tourists would impact 2 million families.

In the past three years, Taiwan’s tourism went from heyday to mayday, but what the Tourism Bureau, under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, did to salvage tourism was only providing subsidies.

On the other hand, other countries invested a large sum of money in tourism publicity drives, in maintenance of tourism facilities, and in pursuing unlawful tourism operators for prosecution. It took Japan seven years to increase the number of inbound tourists from 8 to 30 million per year, and Vietnam’s inbound tourist number also grew by 50% within three years, while our government still regarded tourism as a political bargaining chip. Being oblivious to the declining tourism volume and revenue, the DPP government deliberately put up obstacles to tourists from the Mainland, the largest tourist source for Taiwan, and demanded that tourism operators cooperate with the government to solicit tourists from countries covered in the government’s New Southward Policy.

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