Taipei, Nov. 4 (CNA) The ongoing 2006 Taipei International Travel Fair has provided representatives of foreign countries, such as Austria and India, with yet another opportunity to attract Taiwanese tourists to their countries.
Over the last three years, the number of Taiwanese tourists visiting Austria per year has doubled, from 30,000 in 2003 to roughly 60,000 in 2006, said Wolfram Moritz, Austrian trade delegate in Taiwan.
"Hopefully we can make it 100,000 per year very soon, " he said.
Travel trends in Taiwan have been changing, Moritz said, noting that fewer Taiwanese tourists visit Europe on multi-country package tours. "Tourists prefer one-stop travel so they can spend less time on transportation and more time on exploring the destination. According to our statistics, the average stay of Taiwanese tourists in Austria is now ten days."
The Austria Trade Delegation has tried to take advantage of the trend by promoting outdoor activities and special events this year, such as festivals celebrating the Austrian classical composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 250th birth anniversary, to attract more Taiwanese tourists, Moritz said.
Like Austria, Hong Kong has been going all out with its "2006 Discover Hong Kong Year" promotion campaign, but it has set a more conservative goal in terms of attracting Taiwanese tourists.
"The Hong Kong-Taiwan tourism market is a mature market as more than two million Taiwanese visited Hong Kong last year. It is hard to envision an explosive growth, " said Vivian Chan, senior marketing communications executive of the Hong Kong Tourism Board.
However, the number of Taiwanese visitors to Hong Kong for the first three quarters of 2006 still showed growth of 3 percent over the level for the same period a year earlier, she said.
"It's already a good result for a market like this, " she said.
India has also emerged as a popular destination for Taiwanese tourists, with the number of Taiwanese visiting India increasing 70 percent in the past year, said G. Venkataraman, East Asia regional director of Indiatourism.
With the increased bilateral exchanges between Taiwan and India and better infrastructure and travel arrangements in India, Ventakaraman said he believes more Taiwanese tourists will visit India in the future.