The 2020 Taipei International Travel Fair kicked off on Friday morning. Hundreds of businesses are taking part in this year’s fair, promoting travel to over 30 locations. President Tsai Ing-wen was at the opening ceremony to show support for the local tourism industry, which has taken a hit from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tsai said that, since its inception, the annual travel fair has grown larger in scale each year. She said that the 2020 exhibition is one of the few physical travel fairs in the world still taking place.
President Tsai said that since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government has rolled out several stimulus programs to encourage consumption and travel. She said that since the government began offering travel subsidies, citizens have taken over 17.25 million trips and spent NT$63.5 billion (US$2.2 billion).
A Cabinet representative says that Taiwanese people made around 17 million annual trips abroad on average before the pandemic. The representative said that Taiwan has successfully redirected that travel to domestic destinations.