Taiwan eyes Russia as it moves to broaden source markets

shilin-night-market
Shilin Night Market, Taiwan

In a bid by Taiwan to diversify its feeder markets, three Russian buyers were invited to the B2B segment of the Taipei International Travel Fair (ITF Taipei) 2016, held earlier this month, to better understand what the destination offers.

“Taiwan is a new destination for us. Many Russians have been to China but they do not really know Taiwan,” said Elen Zhuravskaia, director of OrientExpress, who is in Taiwan for the first time.

“Though we don’t have tours to Taiwan yet, we will start preparing a five-day itinerary after returning home. Frankly, it’s a bit far away and no direct flights are available yet. We may have to transit through China and airfare is pretty expensive, but Taiwanese food and hotels are not.”

Meanwhile, Khabarovsk-based Amur Voyage’s director Diakova Elena highlighted challenges with visa applications. Currently, only Taiwan’s representative office in Moscow handles visa applications within Russia.

“This means we have to send our passports there which is translated into a seven-hour flight and it would take 1-2 weeks to process the visa,” she said, adding, however, that she is still interested to offer Taiwan to her clients.

“Russians like to vacation for at least two weeks. They combine sightseeing and relaxation and we try to organise some cultural programmes followed by beaches. There is a possibility to package twin destinations but as interest for Taiwan is growing, we hope to offer in-depth mono-destination experiences.”

According to a spokesman at Taiwan Tourism Bureau’s international affairs division, efforts have increasingly been made to push into the Russian market, such as with annual participation in Russian travel fairs, frequent dialogue with agents to pack Taiwan into their products as well as to increase the number of Russian buyers to three at ITF Taipei 2016.

A total of 5,672 Russians visited Taiwan so far this year between the January-September period.

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