Taiwan Intends to Offer Landed Visa to Cruise Tourists

To reach the goal of nine million tourist arrivals for this year, the Tourism Bureau is taking after Asian countries such as South Korea and Malaysia to offer landed visas to cruise tourists.

Last year Taiwan hosted 373 cruise ships that brought in 536,000 passengers who together spent about NT$1.6 billion (US$53.33 million) while visiting the island. This year the number of cruiser arrivals is expected to increase to 412 and that of passenger arrivals grow to 578,000 with the spending to rise to NT$1.7 billion (US$56.67 million).

The Tourism Bureau is exchanging views with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Immigration Agency on the issue of landed visas to cruise tourists, initially focusing on five emerging Asian economies namely Indonesia, India, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines as the said five nations have ample travel-oriented young people.

An official at the Tourism Bureau indicates that Taiwan has in recent years seen rapid growth in tourist arrivals, mainly because of ballooning Taiwan-bound Chinese visitors and rising cruise tourists.

In 2002 the number of Taiwan-bound Malaysian visitor arrivals was 75,000 and the number surged by 145% to 184,000 in 2009, six years after Taiwan waived visa requirement for  Malaysian tourists in 2003.

The Tourism Bureau discloses that late last year the Asia's largest cruiser-- ‘Mariner of the Sea', docked at Kaohsiung Harbor with 3,000 passengers who took a half-day visit to the harbor city, generating spending of NT$17 million (US$566,667). And this year the Hong Kong-based Star Cruises is expected to send over 20 cruisers to Taiwan, which are believed to generate sizable tourism income to Taiwan's two big harbor cities—Kaohsiung in the south and Keelung in the north. (JL)