NEGATIVE GROWTH IN OVERSEAS VISITORS THIS YEAR|陸客團不來 今年首季來台旅客負成長

The Total number of inbound tourists dropped in the first quarter of the year as the stream of Chinese tourists dries out, even though the number of visitors from Southeast Asia has increased by 200 thousand against the same period last year. Against a grim outlook, the travel industry looks to the government for stronger remedial measures. Large tourist coaches are idle with no business as the lack of Chinese tourist groups continues to bite. Large shopping malls have closed, there are hotel closures, and from the statistics point of view, the first quarter of this year there was negative growth in visitors for Taiwan. Although under the new southwards policy, there was an increase of 200,000 south east Asian visitors over the same period last year, but that cannot make up for the loss of 470,000 Chinese visitors in the same period last year. In the first season this year the total number of visitors is almost 10 percent lower than the same period last year. ==HO CHEN TAN MOTC Minister== If the whole year continues like this, we must take the impact of these figures seriously. The Minister of Transportation and Communications Ho Chen Tan said at an interpellation session at the Legislative Yuan that the goal for the number of visitors this year was around ten million. Legislators felt this was too low. However, the travel industry pessimistically said that if the situation was as bad as in the first quarter, there probably wouldn't even be ten million visitors. Large numbers of Chinese visitors were a thing of the past and if the government really wanted to concentrate on the new southbound policy, then it needed to make proper supporting measures. ==WU CHIEN-CHIH Chair, Taipei Assn. of Travel Agents== There were 11 Thai speakers, 11 Indonesian speakers and 10 Vietnamese speakers among the tour guides who passed the exams in 2016. With those kinds of numbers, how is the new southbound policy to be promoted? The industry feels that foreign language tour guides' exams still have questions on cross straits, which was impractical and they should go back to being more professional. Now, not only southeast Asian language tour guides, but Korean-speaking tour guides were lacking. The government also needed to relax supporting measures for visas to help the non-Chinese visitor market to grow faster. TRANSLATED BY：CLARE LEAR 今年一到三月，來台旅客出現負成長，雖然東南亞旅客較去年同期增加20萬人，但還是趕不上陸客衰退速度，旅行業者直言，陸客不來是事實，政府應該全面檢視新南向政策的配套 大型遊覽車閒置，沒生意做，陸客團不來的影響力還在發酵，有大型購物店歇業，有旅館倒閉，而從統計數字上來看，今年第一季的來台旅客呈現負成長， 雖然在新南向政策影響下，東南亞旅客較去年同期成長20萬人，但彌補不了陸客較去年同期衰退的47萬人，今年第一季，來台旅客總數，較去年減少了將近一成。 ==交通部長 賀陳旦 (2017.3.20)== 假如今年全年都是這個趨勢的話 我們實際上是不敢小看 這個數字上面對我們的衝擊 交通部長賀陳旦日前在立法院備詢，將今年來台旅客目標訂在千萬人，還被立委質疑不夠多，但有旅遊業者悲觀表示，若是像第一季的慘況，恐怕連千萬人都達不到，北市旅行公會理事長直言，陸客榮景已是過去式，現在既然要拼新南向，就要把配套做好。 ==台北市旅行商業同業公會理事長 吳建志== 105年考試 考完試考過的這些導遊 泰語才11個 印尼語好像也11個 越南的導遊才10個 以這樣導遊人數 你說新南向政策要怎麼去推動 業者認為，外語導遊考試內容還包括兩岸關係條例，根本不切實際，應該回歸專業，現在不只東南亞導遊，連韓語導遊都不夠，政府針對簽證也要有寬鬆配套，才能對非陸客市場 的成長速度有所幫助。 綜合報導