The government will step up its global tourism campaign to attract tourists from more countries, a move that Premier Chang San-cheng said will offset the impact of a possible drop in the number of mainland tourists to Taiwan.
The premier made the remarks today while visiting the Sun Moon Lake National Scenic Area and inspecting the local tourism infrastructure.
"Statistics show that mainland Chinese accounted for 25 percent of all tourists to Sun Moon Lake in 2015, down from 30 percent posted the previous year. However, this is attributed to a rise in the number of domestic and other international tourists rather than a decline in the number of mainland visitors," said the premier.
While the number of tourists to Sun Moon Lake climbed steadily from 2.91 million in 2008 to 8.24 million in 2015, the percentage from mainland China surged from 2 percent in 2008 to 30 percent in 2014, according to the Ministry of Transportation and Communications. During the first two months of 2016, however, the number of those from the mainland dipped to 335,860, down by 21,101 from the same period last year.
Premier Chang also touted a government policy to replace diesel-powered yachts with electric yachts on the lake. With the latter accounting for only 10 percent, the government is offering attractive subsidies of more than NT$6 million (US$179,000) for each electric yacht—close to half the price of a new vessel. The government's annual budget for this subsidy has also increased from more than NT$30 million (US$894,000) to the current NT$60 million (US$1.79 million).
At present, 11 of the 139 yachts operating on Sun Moon Lake have been replaced with electric vessels. The government will continue in this effort until all are replaced.