Taiwan to attract tourists from Southeast Asian nations

Taiwan President’s “new southbound policy,” aims to attract international travelers from the Southeast Asian countries. As part of this initiative, last month visa-free entry was extended to Thailand and Brunei.

The Executive Yuan framed the budget for the policy; out of the NT $4.5 billion (US $142 million), NT $200 million will be granted to the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and the national Tourism Bureau. The Ministry of culture will receive NT $100 million. The funds will be spent to promote the Taiwanese culture, tourism and to make it easier for the tourists to visit the country. 

According to the Tourism Bureau statistics, during the first half of the year 2016, the number of foreign travelers coming to Taiwan increased by 9 %. The growth slowed down since May; could be due to decrease in the number of Chinese tourist arrivals. 

The nationals of India, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines will have the facility of conditional visa-free entry to Taiwan, only if they earlier had a visa issued by the US, EU, Japan or South Korea.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator, Lin Li-chan, who himself is an immigrant from Cambodia said, “While Southeast Asian nations suffer from substantial income inequality, there are businesspeople and white-collar workers with disposable income who wish to travel overseas.”

The conditional visa-free entry is expected to attract the wealthy individuals, adding further he said there is potential for growth in a number of business sectors, including plastic surgery and luxury goods.