Taiwan's Top Tourism Executive Sees Malaysia As 'Important Market'

BERLIN, March 21 (Bernama) -- Even as Malaysia aggressively woos tourists in the realisation that tourism is the second most important source of foreign exchange receipts, other countries are looking at Malaysia to source tourism traffic. Taiwan, for example, is eyeing Malaysian tourists to lure them to many of the island's tourist attractions. "Malaysia is an important market for us. This is also reflected in the fact that Malaysian tourists are given a visa-on-arrival at entry points in Taiwan. This is done on a reciprocal basis," said Joseph Cheng, Taiwan Tourism Bureau chief of international affairs, who is in charge of promoting tourism to the island republic. Speaking to Bernama at the recent International Tourism Bourse (ITB) in Berlin, Cheng said that Taiwan and Malaysia were connected by regular commercial flights and sees "good opportunities for developing traffic to Taiwan which offers many interesting features of interest to Malaysian tourists." He pointed out that there was a large and prosperous Chinese community in Malaysia that was keen to explore new destinations of cultural significance for the Chinese, Taiwan being one of them. He said that Malaysians were also interested in Chinese culture and traditions as practised in Taiwan. "Malaysians, particularly the Chinese, are attracted by other factors, as well, such as Chinese medicine. Many visitors from Malaysia also make stop-overs in Taiwan en route to other destinations. We have not only business visitors from all the communities of Malaysia but also leisure travellers," noted Cheng. Malaysia's Chinese community, however, also likes to visit the Sun Moon Lake and the Alishan Mountain, both of which are favourite spots of the Chinese, not only from Malaysia, but also from other countries, including Indonesia, he said. As trade and investment between Taiwan and Malaysia further increase, Cheng envisaged that this would also, invariably, lead to greater traffic between the two sides. Taiwan is one of the major investment sources for Malaysia, besides being a market for a host of Malaysian products. Cheng said Taiwan organised a number of "high-end prestigious industry trade fairs" which attracted a growing number of exhibitors, as well as trade visitors, from Malaysia and other member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean). Taiwan is also increasingly profiling itself as an attractive venue for meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (Mice) events, and this segment attracts high-spending corporate representatives. There has been a growth in the number of visitors from around the world in Taiwan whereby last year, 6.08 million visitors were clocked, up from 5.5 million in 2010. Over 50 per cent of the arrivals are leisure tourists, the rest comprising business travellers. Cheng said, the Taiwan Government attached "high priority" to developing tourism as a source of foreign exchange earnings. "During the past 10 years, we have worked persistently towards building up a hospitable environment for foreign visitors to make them feel at home," he added. A large chunk of Taiwan's inbound traffic comes from Japan, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and others. -- BERNAMA