Cross-strait relations are not good, and tourism operators: Taiwan's tourism prospects are difficult

The 7th "Taiwan Tourism Forum" in 2021 was held in Taichung City on the 2nd, inviting Taiwan's industry, government and academic circles to communicate together, and more than 100 tourism practitioners from all over Taiwan attended the meeting. With the theme of "Dancing with the Epidemic", the forum explored the development direction of Taiwan's tourism industry under the epidemic. Li Wenrui, general manager of Taiwan's "Crazy Horse Travel Agency", said at the forum that at present, the epidemic situation in Taiwan is slowing down and domestic tourism activities are recovering, but the essence of domestic tourism is still short-term operation. If overseas tourism resumes in the future and cross-strait relations are not good, it will be difficult for Taiwan to have better prospects for tourism than before.

Li Wenrui himself is a flat-land ethnic minority in Taiwan, specializing in ethnic minority settlement life tourism theme sightseeing products, so he shared his views on taiwan's future development of sightseeing tourism with the theme of "tourism should let everyone re-understand the land of Taiwan".

Li Wenrui said that the impact of the new crown virus epidemic on the tourism industry has been great, and even the way people communicate face-to-face, even the design of transportation updates will also change due to the epidemic. But human beings are always moving forward, and vaccines are also being developed, and he is optimistic that the future tourism industry is bound to coexist with the epidemic and continue to develop.

However, Li Wenrui pointed out that how to maintain the capacity of Taiwan's tourism in the future is a major issue to be considered now. Especially the development of tourism after the epidemic, he believes that it is still the most affected by the political level. At present, cross-strait mutual trust is weak, and "incentive tourism" and conferences will be affected, which is a major challenge for Taiwan to develop tourism after the epidemic.

Li Wenrui pointed out that the essence of Taiwan's tourism industry at present is still to operate in a short-term manner, and frankly speaking, it is to continuously run activities. If it is under the healthy competition of the tourism foundation, it is good to run the event, but in fact, Taiwan tourism is based on a weakened and unbalanced basis, such as high costs, but it cannot provide the equivalent value that customers can recognize. At the same time, there are constantly new slogans on the activities, and they must start again every year, so they continue to eradicate people's memories and imaginations to create new experiences and attempts, which is the current tourism phenomenon in Taiwan.

How to get Taiwan's tourism industry back to fundamentals after the epidemic? Li Wenrui believes that first of all, it is necessary to return to the free competition in the market, let the legitimate operators operate with peace of mind, and the illegal operators withdraw from the market in order to achieve healthy competition. In the past, in order to achieve a certain effect, in the absence of a market fairness mechanism, all parties were allowed to undertake activities, resulting in frequent situations and uneven quality, resulting in the unfortunate and illegal phenomenon of legitimate businesses. Even after 2016, almost all travel agencies are receiving bids from public institutions, which means that the market mechanism has shrunk and is no longer active.

Li Wenrui mentioned that Taiwan's tourism industry is the beginning of a major challenge after the epidemic, because when the international epidemic is gradually controlled, slowed down, unblocked, and tourism resumes, the mood of Taiwanese people who cannot go abroad for two years has exploded, and it is expected that the wave of overseas tourism will flood domestic tourism. At the same time, in the face of the "low birthrate" and post-epidemic tourism form, group tourism will be transformed into individual self-guided tours. Cross-strait relations have also led to the disappearance of tourism projects such as large-scale exhibitions, so where should domestic tourist tourists go? It's worth thinking about.

Li Wenrui predicted that Taiwan's tourism in the future will never be better than before, if cross-strait relations are not better, outbound tourism will show a majority, and domestic tourism will move towards professional experience travel, otherwise it will be difficult to maintain. (Source: China Comment Network)