Forest Tourism Advances Taiwan’s Travel Sector to Achieve Ecotourism Goals
In a bid to encourage ecotourism across the country, Taiwan’s travel sector is gearing its strategies to attract responsible travellers. For serving this purpose, the country is luring visitors to explore its rich forest recreational areas.
Under its six-month pilot program, Taiwan has allowed citizens and foreign visitors to enjoy any one of the country’s 12 forest recreational areas for free. The country boasts of having striking highlands and dense forest covers. According to statistics, its total forest cover is twice of Norway and five times of Great Britain.
As per the Forestry Bureau, Taiwan’s travel sector witnessed a 38 percent hike in tourist arrivals between July 15 to December 31, 2020, in comparison to 2019. Head of the Bureau’s Forest Recreation Division Weng Li-hsin stated that over 50 percent of the 2.38 million visitors in 2020 have benefitted from the free entry offer.
Since the pandemic had stalled outdoor activities and put great emphasis on responsible travelling, such advances to improve forest tourism will boost revenues of the tourism sector. Visiting these forest recreational areas will also ease the mental stress of both citizens and visitors of Taiwan.
Although Taiwan’s travel sector has been running successful programs to boost tourist arrivals, Weng clams their main goal is to promote forests as a quality destination that will attract repeat visitors. This will introduce greater opportunities for travel agencies, operators and transportation service providers who have otherwise witnessed a drop in 2020 earnings.
The Kenting Forest Recreation Area, Alishan in the southern county of Chiayi, Taipingshan in Yilan and Manyueyuan in New Taipei have recorded better visitor entries. One of the reasons for this is that tour operators have started running outdoor travel packages to help visitors to engage with local culture and history.
To improve revenues of Taiwan’s travel sector, game developers have built an ‘escape game’ on January 1. Launched at Kenting Forest Recreation Area, the game displays virtual visits to different areas of the park.
As the country is anticipating a hike in tourist arrivals during the upcoming Lunar Year holiday, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) has introduced capacity restrictions.
