Taiwan aims to welcome 10.86 million international visitors in 2018

台灣計劃在2018年迎接1086萬人次的國際訪客

The Minister of Transportation and Communication expects a 9% growth in foreign tourists


TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The Minister of Transportation and Communication Hochen Tan (賀陳旦), on Jan. 31 held a press conference where he announced the target tourism numbers in Taiwan for the year 2018.

The Minister said that Taiwan expects to hit a target of 10.86 million visitors to Taiwan in 2018.

In addition to the announcement about target numbers, he also extended a warm welcome to Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan. The Ministry of Transportation and Communication will also lead efforts throughout Taiwan to make the island’s mountainous countryside more easily accessible to visitors.

Despite the drastic reduction in tourists coming from China over the past year since President Tsai assumed office, Taiwan successfully surpassed the 10 millionth international visitor mark on Dec. 12 last year.

According to the report at Liberty Times, over 2 million of the visitors last year came from partner nations targeted by the Southbound Policy of the Tsai Administration. The growth rate was 30 percent higher than visitors from the countries in 2016, which is an encouraging sign for the first full calendar year that the Policy has been in effect.

The number of visitors from South Korea also increased significantly over 2017, with a growth of 19 percent, and exceeding one million visitors for the first time.

Despite the reduced numbers of Chinese tourists, they still reportedly accounted for 25 percent of tourism to Taiwan.

Southeast Asian countries represent the second largest source of foreign visitors followed by Japan with about 18 percent, and then Hong Kong and Macao with 16 percent. South Korea represented the fifth largest source of tourists in 2017.

This year the government expects to maintain those numbers and hopefully surpass them, with a projected increase of 9 percent over 2017 numbers.