Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Tourism: A tale of Two Aprils

Stormy weather expected for the weekend. So have a pic from a nice day...

Here are the numbers from Apr of 2017 and Apr of 2016 downloaded from the Tourism Bureau (visitors by residence). We had a total of 818,705 visitors from Asia in April -- last April the total was 819,478. However, respective totals were 926,813 and 910,323.

Apr-17 Apr-16
HongKong. Macao 190,785 110,716
China 214,196 375,567
Japan 126,712 129,469
Korea,Republic of 84,249 62,668
India 3,083 2,794
Middle East 1,963 1,940
S.E.Asia 196,749 135,633
Others 968 691

We often talk about "visitors from China" but the total number of visitors from China, including Hong Kong and Macao, has actually fallen only 80,000 or so year on year (in April, the March gap was much larger and overall March tourism numbers were down YOY). Note the big rise in tourists from SE Asia in April of 2017, which is buffering the loss of Chinese group tours. Philippines is sending over twice as many tourists as it did a year ago, and this number will rise with the new visa free entry rules. This rising trend in SE Asian numbers can also be seen in March numbers.

Good news for the southbound policy.
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3 comments:

Tommy said...

Those are pretty nasty approval numbers for Tsai and Lin.

Matt Stone said...

Looking further down the XL spreadsheet, I note that Australia manages 9,944 visitors, which is more than any individual European country. Probably helps that it's a (relatively) short flight for Australians, and not much further than Bali, S'pore or HK.

In case you missed it, this article from Rowan Callick starts with the promising phrase "Taiwan is emerging with a strengthened international reputation since the Democratic Progressive Party took office..." and also mentions the marriage equality breakthrough. If it comes up behind a paywall, try using a different browser:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/china-tightens-international-squeeze-on-progressive-taiwan/news-story/ffb32edc9f21ed987b21f49edc321521

Anonymous said...

What about the tourism revenue during these years?