Taiwan welcomed a record number of international visitors in 2016.

New data from the Taiwan Tourism Bureau reveals that a total of 10.69 million travellers visited the island last year, marking a 2.4% year-on-year increase and a new all-time-high.

This came despite a sharp decline in the number of visitors from mainland China, which slumped 16.1% to 3.51m.

This was offset however, by rising arrivals from Southeast Asia, driven by the easing of visa regulations. For example, arrivals from Thailand surged 57.3% in 2016, while the number of travellers from Vietnam jumped 34.3%, the Philippines rose 24.9% and Malaysia increased 10.0%.

Mainland China remains Taiwan’s largest source market however, accounting for 32.9% of total arrivals. A further 17.7% were Japanese (up 16.5% year-on-year to 1.9m) while South Korea accounted for 8.3% of the full-year total (up 34.3% to 880,000).