Taiwan ranks 4th in Asia for tourism competitiveness in WEF report, shows potential for further development: CEPD
The Council for Planning and Development (CEPD) has indicated that Taiwan has the potential to grow as an international destination for tourism and travel, given its recent standings in a tourism competitiveness report.
The CEPD announced Taiwan's scores and rankings from the World Economic Forum's (WEF) first Tourism and Travel Competitiveness Report. The report was released in March and measures development factors related to an individual country's tourism and travel industry.
According to the report, Taiwan ranked 30th in the world out of 124 countries and ranked 4th among Asian nations. The CEPD indicated that as a result of the results, the government plans to hold major celebrations and competitions in a bid to raise Taiwan's visibility as a tourist destination.
It was noted that among Asian countries, Taiwan ranked only behind Hong Kong, which ranked 6th overall, Singapore (8th overall), and Japan (25th overall), and scored ahead of Malaysia (32nd), Thailand (43rd), and China (71st).
In the report, Taiwan received a score of 4.82 on the Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index, and in comparison to its Asian peers, it performed well on the report's three sub-indices measuring Taiwan's tourism conditions and facilities, said the CEPD.
Taiwan scored 5.32 on the report's human, cultural and natural resources sub-index, ranking 23rd globally and 2nd among Asian countries, behind Hong Kong. The CEPD said this high score may be attributed to Taiwan tourism destinations and cultural assets such as Taroko Gorge, Sun Moon Lake, and the National Palace Museum.
On the Environment and Infrastructure sub-index, Taiwan scored 4.43, ranking 28th, while scoring 4.73 and ranking 45th on the Regulatory Framework Sub-Index.
The CEPD said Taiwan aims to become an "important tourist destination in Asia" by 2009, a goal which will be carried out through the government's current economic development stimulus plan, entitled "Economic Development Vision for 2015: Stage I Three-year Sprint Plan".
At the moment, the CEPD indicated that the government policies call for creating a digital guided-viewing system in major cities, building a non-hindrance tourism infrastructure and environment, while integrating tourism with exhibition events or medical health tourism. These policies have the ultimate goal of forming a tourism industry cluster that will bring more economic growth.
The top five ranking countries in the WEF report were Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Iceland, and the United States, respectively.
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