Mainlanders still lack access to Taiwan tourist information

Tourists from mainland China pose in front of Taipei 101, April 30, 2013.

Two friends of mine, one from the United States and the other from mainland China, who plan to visit Taiwan on a backpacking trip, recently asked me to provide them with some tourist information to help them plan their schedule. I replied by sending them almost the same information, but got two very different results. The American friend said the information was abundant and easily accessible, adding that it is no wonder Taiwan often gets good international press; my friend from the mainland however had difficulty in accessing Taiwan’s official tourism information directly — an example being that the website of Songshan Airport in Taipei was off limits.

Such inconvenience in getting tourism information may affect the willingness of mainland tourists to come to Taiwan, and this is a matter to which Taiwan’s government, which is promoting independent travel from across the strait, should pay special attention.

In recent years, the number of the mainland visitors to Taiwan has kept on rising. According to government statistics, last year more than 2.85 million mainlanders visited Taiwan, but group tourists declined to 1.69 million after the initiation of the Free Independent Traveler scheme. The sharp increase in the number of backpackers, which reached 522,000, helping cover the losses from the decline in group tourism. However, compared with the more than 10 million independent mainland tourists who visit Hong Kong each year, there is still plenty of room for Taiwan to grow.

As the mainland’s group tourists are mostly controlled by travel agencies, with hotels, transportation, shopping sites and restaurants mostly decided by the mainland and Hong Kong agencies, their contribution to Taiwan’s economy is comparatively limited. But backpackers can freely arrange their own schedule and choose the options that suit themselves to experience the real Taiwanese way life, thus directly boosting the development of Taiwan’s tourism-related industries and generating comparatively higher benefits.

The biggest difference between backpackers and group tourists is that the former allows them to freely collect tourism information. Therefore, the success of independent travel relies heavily on the convenience of planning a trip beforehand. In recent years, Taiwan has been actively developing its tourism industry, with the Tourism Bureau and domestic travel agencies building up their websites and offering foreign language services, providing all manner of information and introducing the latest activities on offer — a move which has met with affirmation from most foreign tourists. However, because of China’s internet censorship, many mainland residents have been unable to access tourist websites set up by the Taiwanese government.

Moreover, in Taiwan we frequently use social networking websites, YouTube, forums or blogs to share information about the best places to eat and visit. The country’s media has plenty of similar coverage, but on the mainland all these websites are blocked. People in mainland China generally know Taiwan via their microblogging services, and domestic social networking and video-sharing sites such as Renren, Kaixin, Youku and Tudou, which have plenty of content about Taiwan shared by mainland tourists.

After checking these mainland websites, I found that although most of the content shared by mainland tourists about Taiwan is positive, it is nonetheless full of wrong or incomplete information, and even rumors that may cause misunderstandings. In addition, some local businesses have launched exaggerated ads in the mainland resulting in cases of fraud to which some mainland tourists have fallen victim.

In order to let prospective mainland tourists obtain correct and good-quality information about Taiwan, I suggest the government set up tourism websites which are not in the domain .gov, which are inevitably blocked by Beijing’s censors. Taiwan’s government should also actively pursue negotiations with the mainland authorities to relax controls on Taiwan’s tourism websites. Moreover, the government should set up microblogging services for Taiwan tourism and set up websites in simplified Chinese characters to actively share tourism information and buzz about the latest activities; celebrities should be employed as spokespersons, and more attention should be paid to answering questions from mainland internet users.

Mainlanders still lack access to Taiwan tourist information