Focus Taiwan
Date: 08/21/2020
By: Pan Tzu-yu and Frances Huang

Taipei, Aug. 21 (CNA) Border controls resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic caused Taiwan's travel income and expenses to plunge for the second quarter of this year to a new low since the data started to be collated in 1984, according to the central bank.

In the April-June period, travel income fell from US$1.435 billion in the first quarter to a new low of US$94 million, while travel expenses also dropped from the first quarter's US$2.253 billion to a record low of US$193 million, data released on Thursday by the central bank showed.

Fears over the COVID-19 spread brought the global tourism industry to a virtual standstill, the central bank said, so that Taiwan posted a travel service deficit of about US$100 million in travel services, the smallest deficit since the first quarter of 2016, when the figure stood at NT$342 million.

Due to the border controls imposed in mid-March, the number of outbound travelers from Taiwan plunged by 98.9 percent from a quarter earlier to only 47,000, while the number of travelers to Taiwan also tumbled by 99.6 percent to about 13,000, the central bank said.
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