If you have never been to a hot spring, the time is surely right for you to take a stress-busting hot-spring vacation in “the Heart of Asia.” Thanks to encouraging news from scientists working on coronavirus vaccines, people are once again daring to hope that international leisure travel can resume within months. When the door…
Taichung is an excellent launchpad for anyone wishing to explore the stunning mountains that crowd Taiwan’s interior. The city encompasses intensively farmed coastal lowlands, mid-elevation landscapes, and expanses of high-altitude wilderness within Shei-Pa National Park. At the same time, Taichung’s thoroughly modern core area, home to over half its 2.8 million residents, has more than…
For centuries, the Central Mountain Range that stretches nearly the length of Taiwan blocked the eastward progress of Han Chinese pioneers settling the western lowlands. As a result, the traditional cultures and lifestyles of the Austronesian indigenous people in the east remained largely intact until the 1895-1945 period of Japanese colonial rule. Some of the…
The pandemic has grounded Taiwan’s new carrier for the time being, but its long-term prospects still look promising STARLUX Airlines had the misfortune of launching its business amid the worst pandemic in a century. The new Taiwanese carrier began flying on January 23, the first day of the 2020 Lunar New Year holiday and the…
As Taiwan looks for ways to revitalize its international tourism industry once the coronavirus pandemic eases, part of the effort may be to implement what is known as a Destination Management Organization (DMO) program. The Travel and Tourism Committee section of AmCham Taipei’s 2020 Taiwan White Paper applauded the Taiwan Tourism Bureau’s plans to implement…
The domestic travel boom is a double-edged sword, boosting tourism revenue but straining limited resources. There’s a first time for everything, like booking a table for one at a pizza restaurant. I did so recently at the insistence of Tsao Yu-lin, owner of the Blueshine B&B on Taiwan’s Matsu islands, even ordering the pie in…
Taiwan’s tourism sector needs to start planning now for how it will deal with the post-COVID-19 environment. My older brother Seth, despite repeated invitations, has yet to make it to Taiwan and has never expressed more than occasional fraternal interest in the country and culture that’s been the cornerstone of his younger brother’s life. But…
A bi-weekly snapshot of Taiwan business news stories brought to you by CommonWealth and AmCham Taipei’s TOPICS FarEasTone and APT Sign 5G Deal FarEasTone (FET), Taiwan’s third largest telecom operator by market share, and Asia Pacific Telecom Co (APT) announced in early September that they will begin partnering to provide 5G services on Taiwan’s 3.5GHz…
The story is one that people working in Taiwan’s tourism industry hear again and again. A visitor had stopped to look at a map, take photos, or adjust a bicycle chain when passers-by came over to offer assistance. The end of the story is always: “The people here are incredibly kind and friendly.” You don’t…
A hundred years ago, Taiwan was a Japanese colony with an ascendant gold-mining industry. When the Japanese colonial government established a Gold Mining Bureau, it divided the mining region in northern Taiwan into a western section, today’s Jiufen, and an eastern section, today’s Jinguashi. Both are now part of Ruifang District in New Taipei City….
