Taiwan's January-June tourist arrivals were slightly up but hotel occupancy was down, owing to the ban on sea and air links with China, a government report said on Thursday, according to dpa. Most of the visitors came from Japan, Hong Kong/Macau, the US and Southeast Asia. The report also said that 4.4 million Taiwanese went abroad in the first six months this year, up 4.8 per cent. It made Taiwan one of the few countries which have rich tourist resources but see more locals going abroad for sightseeing than foreign tourists coming in. Industry analysts blame Taiwan's sluggish tourism industry on Taipei's five-decade ban on sea and air links with China, which will soon becoming the world's top source of outbound tourists. To boost inbound tourism, Taiwan on August 1 began to allow China's "medical tourists" to visit Taiwan to seek treatment, with the aim of eventually expanding this to all foreigners.
