Taiwan Tourism Bureau is looking at people with skills for Southeast Asian languages as the destination is experiencing a boom from travellers coming from this part of Asia.
TAIPEI- In late August, Taiwan official Tourism Bureau announced to be looking at new guides to cater for the increasing number of Southeast Asian travellers who are visiting the Island. The Bureau is encouraging speakers of languages from Southeast Asia to consider a career in tourism. Tour guides are in particularly high demand to show tourists around Taiwan in their native languages.
In 2012, Taiwan saw 1,131,450 visitors coming from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. The number was up by 5.5% over 2011. While tourist arrivals from Thailand and Vietnam were respectively down by 5% and 6.8% over 2011, they were very strong growth from Malaysia and Singapore (up respectively by 10.8% and 9.2%) due to the growth in low cost carriers’ offer. During the first half of 2013, Southeast Asian visitors were up by 6.9% reaching 572,035 arrivals. South East Asia market share reaches over 15% of all foreign arrivals to Taiwan.
Even as the government works to promote tourism from that area, however, it is struggling with a shortage of licensed tour guides fluent in regional languages. As of July 31, there were just 33 licensed tour guides who speak Thai, seven speaking Malay and only one speaking Vietnamese — nowhere near enough to meet market demand, the bureau said.
To help boost the number of qualified tour guides, the Tourist Guide Association will be holding training courses in Kaohsiung in September and Taipei in October for individuals fluent in one of the Southeast Asian languages.
Arrivals to Taiwan 2012 from
Malaysia 341,032
Singapore 327,253
Indonesia 163,598
Philippines 105,130
Thailand 97,712
Vietnam 89,354
Others 8,513
Total Southeast Asia 1,132,592
Luc Citrinot a French national is a freelance journalist and consultant in tourism and air transport with over 20 years experience. Based in Paris and Bangkok, he works for various travel and air transport trade publications in Europe and Asia.
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