Taiwan has a growing number of visitors from Southeast Asia with a shortage of Thai and Vietnamese tour guides

Taiwan's borders reopened a year ago following the pandemic ended. There is a shortage of tour guides who know Vietnamese and Thai as the number of visitors from Southeast Asia rises quickly.

Taiwan has a growing number of visitors from Southeast Asia with a shortage of Thai and Vietnamese tour guides.Photo reproduced from 台北旅遊網

The Tourism Administration's statistics show that as of September of this year, 46,687 individuals in Taiwan—split into 15 language categories—had obtained tour guide qualification certificates. The majority of these individuals, or over 35,000 Chinese speakers, were followed in order by 7,281 English speakers, 4,102 Japanese speakers, and Thai speakers. Only 168 of the 174 individuals can speak Vietnamese. Following the outbreak, there was a sharp rise in Southeast Asian tourism, along with the issue of a shortage of tour guides who could speak Thai and Vietnamese.

The chairman (許冠濱) of the Tourist Guide Association, R.O.C., stated that while there are shortages of Vietnamese and Thai tour guides, Southeast Asian visitors have recovered well from the pandemic, despite the fact that certain language tour guides are out of a job. The number of spots available for uncommon language certification should be increased ahead of time, and tour guides' training should be expanded to include more languages, if we anticipate having to handle more visitors the next year.

Furthermore, a few experts expressed the hope that the certification process could be loosened up and that assistance could be given to foreign students and new immigrants to help them obtain the certificates. This would help address the issue of a lack of tour guides in different languages in the post-epidemic tourism market.