Taipei, July 12 (CNA) With increasing tourism exchanges between Taiwan and Japan, both airlines and cruise operators saw an increasing number of passengers traveling between the two countries in the first three months of this year, according to the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC).
Airlines serving routes between Taiwan and Japan carried a record high of 3.12 million passengers, representing an increase of 1.5 percent compared with the same period of last year, according to MOTC statistics.
The routes were relatively busy compared with the routes between Taiwan and Hong Kong, which saw 2.09 million passengers, down 6.8 percent from the same period of last year.
Meanwhile, the number of passengers between Taiwan and South Korea breached the 1 million mark for the first time to reach 1.02 million, up 33.1 percent year-on-year.
At the same time, with the increasing popularity of cruise tourism, the number of cruise passengers traveling between Taiwan and Japan was 148,000, up 41.2 percent year-on-year.
Among all international cruise lines, the route between Keelung and Japan in the first three months saw the highest number of passengers at 104,000, up 34 percent year-on-year, which accounted for 72 percent of the total.
