Tainan City Government held the third meeting discussing on the topic of cross strait relations on April 18th. Tourism Bureau, Agricultural Bureau and Economic Development Bureau discussed the impact of reducing tourists from mainland China, the future agricultural products O2O, and benefits for investors returning from mainland China. Councilmen are pleased with City Government’s preparation for future cross straits interaction.
Mayor Lai firstly congratulated councilman Chiu Chui-Cheng on taking the position of MAC vice chairman. Mayor Lai hopes that the cross strait interaction can have solid improvements and bring real benefits to Tainan City.
In the meeting, members discussed with a lot of passion and honored the hard work of city government on researching cross strait relation. They agreed with city government’s policy on increasing tourism development efficiency instead of increasing tourist number. The participants believed that this can put Tainan City in the leading position during tourism development and greatly attract tourists from different areas. They also suggested that Tainan City should emphasize on the concept of “cultural capital” and “abundance of agricultural products”.
Under the rule of stability and discipline, Tainan City should creatively develop tourism and coordinate with federal government. Tainan City should further push the policy on attracting investors to return to Taiwan and offer real benefits and convenience to investors. Finally, they suggested that City Government should aid fishermen and farmers to develop products that fit global taste in order to increase the competitiveness of local fishermen and farmers. This will lower the impact on the single product export.
Chiu Chui-Cheng commented on the recent issue that the tourists from mainland China had nosedived. But according to the data provided by the Immigration Agency, rather than decreasing, the tourists from the mainland China increased 15% compared to the same period (Jan. 1-early Apr.) last year. Thus, Chiu thought that the issue was merely a market’s behavior. He suggested the government to attract the inbound tourists from Korea. Speaking of the New Southward Policy launched by the new government, he recommended the Tainan city government to follow the federal government’s policies, including market adventure in ASEAN and opening of visa on arrival for them. Besides, because Tainan is so unique among Taiwan’s history, he offered a slogan—“Been Tainan, been Taiwan”—in order to enhance the irreplaceable role that Tainan has. Tainan should promote the local cultures and the features it has.
According to the report in 2013 offered by Tourism Bureau of Tainan City Government, the average daily expense of a Chinese was 103.8 us dollar and the shopping expense was 160.6 us dollar; while a Japanese was 230.6 us dollar and 101.6 us dollar. Obviously, the Chinese spend less due to the monopolized tour package, said the RDEC.
Furthermore, the stats of the hotels revealed that the foreign tourists lived in Tainan increased from 409 thousand in 2011 to 535 thousand in 2015. The increasing rate was 30.8%, while the average increasing rate per year was 7.7%. The stats also showed that in 2013, the Japanese tourists over passed the Chinese to become the main foreign tourists in Tainan.