VIETNAM, Mozambique and Croatia are some of the countries looking to tap the growing Taiwanese outbound market, which saw 10 million go on holiday in the first 10 months of 2014.
Taipei International Travel Fair chairman, CT Su, predicts Taiwanese outbound will grow five per cent to 11.3 million.
Keen to get a share is Vietnam. Tran Phu Cuong, deputy director general of the international cooperation department, Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), said: “We want to attract more Taiwanese because the market is big with high spending power.”
VNAT held roadshows in Taichung and Taipei last most, and will soon be promoting beach tourism and city breaks. The country welcomed over 306,000 Taiwanese from January to September this year, up three per cent year-on-year.
Croatia also recorded strong increase in Taiwanese traffic since becoming an EU member last year and offering visa-free access to visitors, and is now focued on building awareness, and business and MICE groups into capital Zagreb.
Zagreb Tourist Board, convention bureau director, Zlatan Muftic, said: “A new airport is under construction in Zagreb, and the new terminal will be completed by 2016 with air bridges providing direct access from plane to terminal.”
However, Mozambique has had a disappointing response from Taiwan so far due to the lack of knowledge about the destination, said Achilles Yeh, representative of the Mozambique Investment Promotion Centre in Taipei.
But with the spike in tourist numbers from Japan and South Korea in recent years, Mozambique tour operators have tailored programmes and services to Asian tastes, said Yeh.
