TAIWAN. Taiwan has gone from a record-high count of Japanese visitors in 2002 to an all-time low in 2003, reports Japan’s leading travel publication, Travel Journal International Online (TJI).
TJI cites the latest figures released by the Taiwan Visitors Association (TVA), which show that Japanese visitor numbers to Taiwan fell -33.1% to 659,972 last year, the lowest since Taiwan began promoting tourism in Japan.
It also marked the first time that the count has dropped below the 700,000 level.
TJI commented: “The first two months of 2003 continued the record-setting pace of 2002, boasting double-digit increases. But from March, with the start of the Iraq War, followed by the spreading of SARS, particularly in Asia, traffic plunged by double-digit levels, with December recording a -25.2% drop [year-on-year].”
In 2002, tourism rebounded from the impact of 9/11 to attract the largest number of Japanese visitors ever, thanks to Taiwan’s promotions of Chinese tea, aesthetics and gourmet dining aimed at the women’s market.
TVA said that Japan was the slowest of the major tourism markets to rebound in its travel to Taiwan after the end of the war and SARS.
