In Taiwan, SET Tour is a well-known travel agency which has the largest scale and the most booming business in the travel industry. In Taiwan, when speaking of traveling, people will think of SET Tour immediately. We interviewed its founder, Mr. He Shih-Geng, who was also the first manager of the Grand Hotel. The 87-year-old Mr. He is going to talk about the Taiwan Jinja and the tourist spots in Taipei.

Professor Tsai in National Taiwan Normal University went with us to interview Mr. He		The inventory of Taiwan Hotel for transference	The floor plan of Taiwan Hotel

From Taiwan Travel to Taiwan Hotel
In 1949, the state-owned Taiwan Travel got a NT$30,000,000 loan from Bank of Taiwan. They used the money to demolish the Taiwan Jinja, built a two-story hotel operated by the government and named it “Taiwan Hotel”. Mr. He Shih-Geng, who originally worked at Taiwan Travel, was transferred to Taiwan Hotel to be the first manager.
From Taiwan Hotel to SET Tour
Three years later, Taiwan Hotel was transferred to Duen-Mou Foundation of Taiwan, and was rebuilt into the 14-story Grand Hotel. Mr. He went back to work at Taiwan Travel then. Later, he founded SET Tour with 15 other colleagues. Mr. He, who could speak Chinese, English and Japanese, worked as the president of SET Tour Ever since, he has run the business very successfully.
Most of the Foreign Clients of SET Tour are Japanese
There are six branch offices of SET Tour overseas. SET Tour is the leader in the industry which serves the most tourists overseas to Taiwan. We asked Mr. He from which country most of the foreign tourists come from. Mr. He told us it's Japan. There were more than one million Japanese who come to visit Taiwan last year.
The Hot Spots in Taiwan for the Foreign Tourists
Mr. He said that foreigners love to visit National Palace Museum, Lung-Shan Temple, National Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, Tarako National Park, the Martyrs' Shrine and the Grand Hotel.
Why Martyrs' Shrine Attracts Tourists
Mr. He said that Martyrs' Shrine has two major attractions for foreign visitors. One is the guard mounting, and the other is the palace-style architecture. In the whole world, guard mounting only exists in two places, Britain and Taiwan. That's why visitors must come here to see the performance. The grandeur and charm of the palace-style architecture are also something that the foreigners cannot resist.
On the way of leaving Mr. He's place, we stopped by the Martyrs' Shrine. We counted the vehicles parked in front of the shrine to find that most of them were the sightseeing buses owned by travel agencies. They parked there for around 40 minutes while other cars stayed longer. Mr. He had talked with us about how to improve the quality of tourism in Taiwan. Mr. Bi also raised the problem about the traffic. All these issues could probably remain to be settled in the near future.   

Website Translated by Ou Yang Pei-ting( Top )