Taiwan-based Japanese travel to Hualien to show support after temblors

Taipei, June 8 (CNA) A group of Japanese residents in Taiwan set out on a two-day trip to Hualien County on Saturday to show their support, after the county's tourism industry was hit hard by recent earthquakes.

Kazuyuki Katayama, Japan's representative to Taiwan, is also part of the group. He told local reporters before embarking on a whale-watching activity in Hualien City that the aim of the group trip is to show support for the county through concrete actions.

The trip was organized by Japanese individuals living in Taiwan. According to Katayama, the group consisted of approximately 40 Japanese and Taiwanese.

He said members of the group would share their trip on social media in the hope of promoting tourism in Hualien -- which has been adversely impacted by a magnitude 7.4 earthquake that struck eastern Taiwan on April 3 -- and encouraging more Japanese to visit the county.

Katayama, who took charge of the Taipei office of the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association in November 2023, said he was thrilled to visit Hualien for the first time and looks forward to taking part in various activities over the next two days.

The association's Taipei office represents Tokyo's interests in Taiwan in the absence of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

The group departed Taipei on Saturday -- the first day of the Dragon Boat Festival holiday -- and arrived in Hualien later that day.

Apart from whale watching, the group was scheduled to visit the Malasang hunter school in Jian Township, where they would be introduced to the traditional activities of the Amis Indigenous people, and Dongdamen Night Market on Saturday.

The group will begin the second day with a tour of Chongqing Market, followed by a visit to the Pine Garden, which was built in 1942 by the Japanese during the colonial period to serve as a military command facility.

The major earthquake in early April, its aftershocks, and subsequent quakes have taken a toll on Hualien's tourism sector, said Chiu Hsi-tung (邱錫棟), representative of Hua Dong Whale World, the company arranging the whale-watching activity for the group.

Chiu said the company's tours during the Dragon Boat Festival are usually fully booked, but this year bookings plummeted to roughly 30 percent.

Lin Hsu Tse-yu (林徐則鈾), the head of an association representing Bed and Breakfast owners in Hualien, said at the end of May that bookings for June 8-10 were estimated to be less than 10 percent.

This is in "stark contrast" to previous years, when bookings typically reached 70 percent during the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, Lin Hsu said, noting that the recent earthquakes had deterred many tourists and thus impacted the B&B business.