Taipei, Feb. 8, 2010 (CENS)--While the tourism market shrank by 2% in the Asia- Pacific region in 2009, Taiwan managed to record the highest annual growth 14% among countries in the region, according to Hsieh Wei-chun, deputy director general of Taiwan`s Tourism Bureau.

Hsieh attributed the rise to the opening of Taiwan`s tourism market to Chinese mainlanders. Last year the number of Taiwan`s inbound tourist arrivals reached 4.395 million, the number is expected to surge to 4.8 million this year to generate an estimated tourism income of NT$240 billion (US$7.27 billion).

In 2009 the global tourism market witnessed a negative growth of 4%, higher than the Asia-Pacific region`s 2% shrinkage. In the region, only Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia and Sri Lanka experienced positive growth rates.

Thanks to mainland Chinese tourists, Taiwan`s tourist arrivals have been on the rise over the past few years. Last year Taiwan recorded a whopping annual rise of 195.3% in the number of tourist arrivals from mainland China, of mainland Chinese tourists, and inbound tourists from Hong Kong and Macao surged 16.19%.

However, tourist arrivals from Japan, South Korea, the United States, Singapore, Europe, Australia and New Zealand all posted a negative growth in 2009, particularly those from Japan presenting a sharp drop of 7.92%.

Hsieh asserted that the Taiwan-bound Chinese mainlanders would keep growing rapidly in the coming years, and predicted that the number of tourist arrivals from China to rise to 750,000 this year from last year`s 600,000. If plus those on business purpose, the figure might expand to 1.1 million.

(by Judy Li)