World invited to put "green silicon island" on must-see list

This interesting article was written by Graham Norris and published by the Taiwan Journal on September 23, 2005. It reports that the government in Taiwan aims to transform Taiwan into a "green silicon island". The government has also set a target of increasing the number of visits by foreigners to 5 million per year by 2008.

To achieve this target, the government in Taiwan has begun to develop various facilities in the vicinity of scenic spots around the island. A user-friendly tourist information network has been created, and an international advertising campaign launched. This article provides good details on all these achievements.

Take the international advertising campaign for example. In Japan, a character named "Mr Tea" has appeared on television, in magazines and newspapers, and on train posters, playing on the Japanese fondness for Taiwanese tea. In Europe and the United States, advertisements are running on the Cable News Network and the Discovery Channel. In the United Kingdom, print-media advertisements are designed to lure the country's many bird watchers.

Other marketing strategies are employed. For instance, bargain package tours and free half-day tours for transit passengers are designed. Rules on landing visas are relaxed, while value-added tax rebates are offered to overseas shoppers.

Most significantly, the Tourism Bureau's many overseas offices have doubled their efforts to promote Taiwan as a great tourist destination. They make presentations at trade shows, arrange for media representatives to visit Taiwan, and develop liaisons with tourism organizations.

Here are some statistics. In the first five months of this year (2005), the number of foreign tourist arrivals was up nearly 20 percent when compared to last year. The number of visits made by overseas tourists was 284,000, up 22 percent from the previous year.

In terms of raw numbers, the greatest increase was from Japan, up 32 percent to 89,400. The number of visitors from South Korea, Singapore, Europe and the United States also increased significantly. Among all the overseas visitors, about 39 percent declared that they were visiting Taiwan for pleasure, and another 30 percent for business. Others came to visit relatives, attend conferences, or study.

On the other hand, Taiwanese made more than 700,000 trips abroad in the first five months of this year (2005), up by nearly 16 percent from the previous year. Half of these trips were to Hong Kong and Mainland China, with another 100,000 to Japan.