Taipei Times
Date: Oct 22, 2015
By: Shelley Shan / Staff reporter
Lawmakers on the Legislative Yuan’s Transportation Committee yesterday
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Yeh Yi-jin yesterday questions the Tourism Bureau’s inviting of a Japanese actor to be the endorser of Taiwan’s tourism industry at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee in Taipei. Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
voiced concern that the nation has been over-reliant on revenue brought by Chinese tourists, saying that the Tourism Bureau needs to improve travel quality for all visitors and enhance its tourism campaigns.
The issue arose as committee members were scheduled to review the bureau’s budget for the next fiscal year at yesterday’s meeting.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) said that mainland Chinese tourists accounted for 40 percent of total visitor numbers this year, up from 5 percent in 2008, while the percentage of visitors from Hong Kong and Macau dropped from 24 percent to 18 percent.
Japan was once the nation’s largest source of foreign tourists, but that market has declined from 38 percent to 15 percent, she said. [FULL STORY]
