As the largest integrated tourism platform in Taiwan, TVA is tasked with improving the quality of Taiwan`s tourism and the number of foreign tourists, including from Indonesia.
The number of Indonesian tourists visiting Taiwan in January-November 2018 period reached 195,500 people.
"We hope that the number of tourists from Indonesia to Taiwan will increase, perhaps by two or three times," Head of the Taiwan Trade and Economic Office (TETO), John Chen, stated at the inauguration of the TVA office in Jakarta on Thursday, Jan 17.
With a population of 260 million and more than 8 million tourists traveling abroad every year, Indonesia has the potential to be the largest tourist market of Taiwan in the Asia Pacific.
Over the past four years, the number of foreign tourists visiting Taiwan has reached 10 million.
However, from this figure, the number of tourists from Indonesia is not up to 1 percent.
"Therefore, we have established a TVA office in Jakarta so that cooperation between Taiwan and Indonesia would be even better, especially in the field of tourism," Chen noted.
In order to attract more Indonesian tourists, the Taiwanese authorities have simplified the visa application process and are considering visa-free policies for Indonesian tourists.
Dozens of countries have enjoyed visa-free facilities to enter Taiwan, such as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, the US, and European Union member countries.
While for Southeast Asia, the Taiwanese authorities have extended the 14-day visa-free trial program for three countries, namely Brunei Darussalam, the Philippines, and Thailand, until the end of July 2019.
The program, which began in August 2016 under the Taiwanese New South American Policies (NSP), yielded positive results with the number of visits from NSP countries increasing by 27.7 percent year-on-year to 2.28 million tourists in 2017.
NSP`s mission puts Indonesia as one of the priorities, where cooperation in the economic, educational, labor, and agricultural sectors of the two countries is more intensive and beneficial.
"Tourism is a means of direct communication by word of mouth, so that it becomes one of the main points of implementation of our business going forward," Chen revealed.
Reporting by Yashinta Difa Pramudyani
Reporter: Antara
Editor: Azizah Fitriyanti
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