Creating a High-Quality, Friendly, and Convenient Travel Environment
Measures to Create a Friendly Travel Environment
Taiwan is centrally located in the Asia-Pacific region. It enjoys convenient transportation links and a wealth and diversity of tourism resources. The Tourism Bureau develops overall tourism policy to promote the development of high-quality tourism, support industrial and economic transformation and upgrading, and expand international exchange channels. To create and pro-mote a friendly and high-quality tourism environment, the Bureau has introduced the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle, Taiwan Tour Bus, Taiwan Pass, i-center, and other brands.
"Taiwan Tourist Shuttle" tour bus service to scenic spots
The Tourism Bureau provides guidance to county and city governments and national scenic area administrations in planning direct and convenient transportation and travel services to popular visitor sites for domestic and foreign travelers who do not want to drive long distances or join tour groups. The shuttles offer the most direct links to these sites with affordable fares and easy-to-catch buses so travelers can enjoy Taiwan's unique charms.
The Tourism Bureau planned 42 itineraries to 37 mountain towns in conjunction with the Year of Mountain Tourism and ongoing promotion of small town tourism. Half-price Taiwan Tourist Shuttle cards were introduced in 2020 for the Lunar New Year and other holiday periods, as well as during the summer vacation period (June 29 to September 30). Visitors could also enjoy a range of special offers during the summer from more than 370 businesses to promote tourism de-velopment along the routes. In addition, the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle arranged an "Island-wide Fun" activity from September 30, 2020 to January 3, 2021. This encouraged people to use public transportation and the shuttle service for island-round travel. A total of 714 people participated and 30 people successfully completed island-round trips. The activity promoted new types of green tourism and maintained momentum in the domestic tourism market.
- Value-added service:
The shuttles are equipped with e-guide systems and announce station stops in multiple lan-guages. The ratio of accessible buses is being increased, and enhanced bus movement infor-mation is helping to facilitate trip planning. - Ridership
Taiwan Tour Bus served 3.72 million passengers on 60 routes. - Special offers
More than 140 package tours were provided that included special offers for dining, accommodations, recreation, shopping and travel. - Marketing and promotion
Guides and Chinese, English, and Japanese brochures, and Chinese, English, Japanese, and Korean posters were produced and issued. Half-price Taiwan Tour Bus e-tickets are occasionally offered, and preferential marketing and promotion deals from businesses in areas served by the shuttle routes were also issued and combined with special promotion offers. - Quality control
Tour package assessments by experts and scholars and workshops for industry personnel were arranged.
Taiwan Tourist Shuttle Shen Shan Line activity
Taiwan Tour Bus system
The Tourism Bureau provides guidance to tourism operators in the planning and design of branded Taiwan Tour Bus package tours meeting high service quality and operating standards. The buses provide domestic and foreign tourists fast, convenient, and friendly scheduled guided transportation service from hotels and transport hubs to Taiwan's tourism areas. The full transpor-tation service focuses on "in-depth travel" for one to four people, providing ultimate levels of convenience.
In conjunction with Year of Mountain Tourism and continued promotion of small town tourism, the Tourism Bureau arranged 61 package tours through small towns. In response to the deep im-pact of COVID-19 on tourism in the first half of the year, Taiwan Tour Bus operators introduced preferential offers under the Safe Travel Program for individual travelers from July 1 to October 31, 2020, as the pandemic abated in Taiwan. The program encouraged people to travel, generated revenue for tourism businesses, and supported a shift in travel agency focus from international travelers to the domestic travel market amid a near total closing of the border due to the pandemic.
- Value-added service
Chinese, English, Japanese, and Korean audio guide services and free wireless internet access were added. - Special offers
Released 83 half-day, one-day, two-day, and island hopping tours and the Taiwan Tour Bus "Train-Bus Travel Passport" between 2019 and June 2020 - Ridership
The Taiwan Tour Bus served about 53,000 passengers (including 44,000 domestic travelers accounting for 83% of the total) and directly generated more than NT$116 million in tour-ism revenue. - Marketing and promotion
Chinese, English, Japanese, and Korean promotional brochures, occasional stored value card promotions for half-price shuttle services, and preferential marketing and promotion deals from businesses in areas served by the shuttle routes. - Quality control
Tour package assessments by experts and scholars and workshops for industry personnel were arranged.
2020 Tainan International Travel Fair
Taiwan Pass
In 2015, the Tourism Bureau issued the "Kaohsiung, Pingtung, and Penghu Pass" and "Yilan Pass" to provide a new simplified travel experience for FIT visitors to Taiwan. In 2016, the Bu-reau issued a "Central Taiwan" pass (covering Miaoli, Taichung, Changhua, Nantou, Yunlin, Chiayi County, and Chiayi City), a "Taitung" pass, and two non-municipality passes to expand the scope of the travel-friendly pass. In 2017, two new passes were issued, one for Tainan and one for the Taipei, New Taipei, and Keelung area. In 2018, regional cards were phased out and replaced by a more regionally-integrated approach. Counties and cities were invited to package products and participate in promotions to achieve the goal of cross-domain and diversified prod-ucts. In 2019 and 2020, the focus shifted to the packaging and marketing of county and city "in-ternational classic tours" and "in-depth specialty tours." In 2020, the passes entailed 204,444 transactions totaling NT$131,006,678.
K.P.P Taiwan Pass
Yilan Taiwan Pass
Taichung Taiwan Pass
Taitung Taiwan Pass
Tainan Taiwan Pass
T.N.K. region Taiwan Pass
i-center tourism service system and Information Station
To provide domestic and foreign tourists with fast and convenient access to tourism and travel information, the Tourism Bureau assists local governments in establishing the "i" logo i-center Travel Service System at major transport terminals and stations and visitor sites at national scenic areas throughout Taiwan.
The i-centers provide different services based on local characteristics and service type. Three Lev-el 1 tourist service centers have been established and are operated by the Tourism Bureau at the Taoyuan, Kaohsiung, and Songshan international airports. A total of 55 Level 2 visitor infor-mation centers have been set up by local governments with guidance from the Tourism Bureau at major domestic transportation hubs, such as train stations, HSR stations, airports, and MRT sta-tions. In addition, 60 Level 3 visitor centers have been set up by administrations under the Tour-ism Bureau at major scenic spots in national scenic areas.
Furthermore, in order to create a high-quality and friendly tourism environment and promote Taiwan's tradition of warm greetings, the Tourism Bureau planned a cross-industry cooperation mechanism to help city and county governments and national scenic area administrations select private businesses and public and private units to set up Information Stations according to facility and service rules drafted by the Bureau. As of 2020, local travel information and consulting ser-vices were available from more than 610 Information Stations around Taiwan. The Tourism Bu-reau is now actively promoting innovations and improvements to the i-center system. In conjunc-tion with 2020 Year of Mountain Range Tourism, the Bureau produced a promotional video fea-turing tourism mascot OhBear that highlighted Information Stations in Meishan, Chiayi. The vid-eo was shared by 4,629 people and reached over 200,000 viewers, effectively building awareness of the Information Station brand.
