“It was interesting because there were no [mainland] Chinese tourists,” said Au, 35. “Usually you’d have to avoid a lot of the destinations like Taroko Gorge, but it was empty, so that was a pleasure for me.”

Instead, he ran into a bounty of tourists like himself from elsewhere in East Asia, and they help comprise a group that is forming a new trend in Taiwanese tourism.

Gone are the mainland Chinese tourists who had visited Taiwan en masse since both sides allowed arrivals in 2008. Mainland arrivals reached a record high of 3.4 million in 2015.

In 2019, Beijing cut off travel to the island by individuals, and in March 2020 sealed borders against travellers worldwide at the onset of the pandemic.

Mainland China sees self-ruled Taiwan as a breakaway territory that must be united with the mainland, by force if needed. Relations have faltered over the past seven years.

But since Taiwan threw off its old Covid-19 controls and reopened borders in late 2022, inbound tourism has rebounded.

A total of 2.7 million people visited from overseas from January through June, according to Taiwan Tourism Bureau data – far from the minuscule numbers seen from 2020 through early last year.

04:39

Taiwan residents living within sight of mainland China voice concerns over live-fire drills

Taiwan residents living within sight of mainland China voice concerns over live-fire drills

Hong Kong was the top source over those six months, with 419,674 tourists, followed by 324,420 from Japan and 313,000 from South Korea, the data shows. After the US in fourth place, at 231,182 arrivals, Malaysia followed with 202,784, and Singapore had 198,749.

Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines contributed about 535,000 people in total.

“They are the mainstay of inbound arrivals,” said Tony Phoo, an economist with Standard Chartered Bank in Taipei. “It helps in terms of the sector’s recovery, because we only recently opened the border in October.”

Tourists, year to date, are coming most obviously from South Korea, said Bian Chieh-min, general manager of Phoenix Tours in Taipei.

At stake are about 9,500 Taiwanese tour guides, 2,800 travel agencies and 3,400 hotels. Many weathered the pandemic on government subsidies and domestic tourism, while others closed for good.

Travellers from around Asia are coming to Taiwan on weekdays as well as weekends during the midyear school holidays, supporting “a return of income” for travel agencies, airlines and hotels, Bian said.

Taiwan appeals to other Asian travellers often because of relatively low prices and a wealth of budget airlines that can reach it in three to four hours. Curiosity about its food, the island’s Japanese colonial history, and its adaptation of Chinese culture lure travellers too.

Taipei-based tour organiser KKday calls short flight times, “affordable” prices, “delicious” food, access to nature, and the preservation of traditional Chinese culture the top draws. Single-day tours are another draw, KKday said in an email to the Post.

Up to 100 passers-by from Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore stop on busy weekend days at Tsai Wan-nong’s 50-year-old roadside food stall, which she says has been hit by rising rent and utility rates. She sells on Danshui Old Street, a focal point in the Danshui riverside historic and dining zone north of Taipei.

“Just about everything but gas has gone up in price, and to fix that we need more tourists,” she said.

But tourist arrivals over the first six months of 2023 are hardly on track to beat the 11.9 million arrivals in pre-pandemic 2019.

Although the number of Korean arrivals has surprised the Taiwanese travel sector, their arrivals plus those from Southeast Asia are “still not enough to get back to pre-Covid numbers”, said Hiro Liao, vice-president of Skal International East Asia and president of Skal International Taipei.

Airlines are full, and civil-aviation labour shortages cap the number of Taiwan-bound that carriers can offer, Liao said.

“The stress now is on the existing labour pool. The younger generation doesn’t want to be tied up, they want the flex economy,” he said. “I think it’s a global phenomenon, but Taiwan seems to be hit much harder in East Asia than Korea, et cetera.”

Online events that took off during the pandemic are still hobbling conference travel, Liao added.

At the five-table Nan Hsiao Hsuan Cafe near Danshui old street, owner Weng Wei-hung said that, before 2020, mainland Chinese would get off tour buses just outside his shop, see his sign and stop for drinks.

They would lift his business, but Weng was still forced to close it during the pandemic, when few people came, only to reopen at the end of 2022.

The operator now receives several small groups of Southeast Asian tourists every weekend, but he doesn’t expect their numbers to top previous arrivals from mainland China. “When the mainland people decided to come here, they would really come,” he said.

Other merchants in Danshui – from souvenir vendors to other food hawkers – said on Monday that they were unaware of any uptick in tourists from around Asia.

Some may wonder whether Taiwan-mainland frictions will create danger zones, Au said. But he plans to keep scoping it out.

Compared with other parts of Greater China, he said, “I think Taiwan offers a lot more, in terms of nature, and that diversity is all across the island.”