Mainlanders shop most in Taiwan

Visitors from the Chinese mainland to Taiwan were 2012's highest-spending group in terms of shopping, avera­ging $157.37 per day, according to data the Taiwan tourism bureau released Monday.

According to the bureau, tourism income in the region reached a record high of $11.76 billion last year, up 6.36 percent over the previous year. ­Japanese tourists topped the list, with total per capita daily consumption of $308.65, followed by visitors from the Chinese mainland with $265.26.

Shopping accounted for nearly 60 percent of the daily expenditure for mainland tra­velers, whose preferred purchases were jewelry and jade.

Tourists from the mainland also recorded the highest rate of satisfaction with their travel experience on the island at 98.1 percent, followed by tourists from Australia and New Zealand with 98 percent.

The bureau conducts regular surveys at three airports to track visitors' travel motives, spending patterns, satisfaction and opinion of Taiwan as a tra­vel destination.

A total of 6,015 valid samples were collected in the surveys between January and December 2012.

Last week, the bureau said in a press release that it is opening individual tourism to mainland cities so as to benefit the deve­lopment of the region.

The bureau announced last month that residents in 13 mainland cities including Shenyang, Zhengzhou and Wuhan are now eligible to vi­sit­­ Taiwan as individual tourists under a new cross-Straits agreement, bringing the total number of cities to 26.

Before that, mainland residents could visit the island only by joining tour groups.

A total of 1.97 million mainland tourists visited Taiwan in 2012, up from 55,000 in 2008, when Taiwan opened its tourism market to mainland tra­velers, Xinhua News Agency reported in June.