Hsinchu's most promising foreign tourists may already be in town on business. Europe's top business representative in Taiwan says the city should give them a reason to stay through the weekend.
Hsinchu's quickest route to international tourists runs through the business travelers it already hosts, according to Freddie Höglund, chief executive officer of the European Chamber of Commerce Taiwan (ECCT). Speaking to Storm Media's English-language site on October 19, 2026, he said the semiconductor city should focus on turning work trips into weekend stays, and on the small details that make a foreign visitor comfortable.
Höglund spoke on the sidelines of the 2026 HCCG × TTI Hsinchu City Tourism Development Forum at the Fleur Lis Hotel, hosted by the city government and the Taiwan Tourism Institute (TTI). Bas Pulles, Representative of the Netherlands Office Taipei, and Michael Wu, chair of ECCT's Travel and Tourism Committee, who both addressed the forum, also spoke to Storm Media at the event.
Famous In Chips, Little Known As A Destination
Höglund began with the city's strongest card. "Hsinchu has some major advantages," he said. "The first one being that it is very well known within the semiconductor industry globally. Everybody who's in this industry knows. Hsinchu is the heart of the semiconductor industry in Taiwan. So that's a real positive."
The gap is on the leisure side. "What is perhaps not so well known is Hsinchu, and even Taiwan, as a tourist destination," he said. "So this is where the challenge lies: marketing and promoting Hsinchu as a tourist destination."
Höglund Says Keep Visitors Until Monday
His recommendation, which he said he had also raised at the forum that morning, starts with people who are already arriving.
"Since the business travelers are already coming here to Hsinchu on business, you might try to focus on keeping them a bit longer, maybe over the weekend, instead of going back on the Friday afternoon and flying back to Europe and elsewhere," Höglund said. "Maybe they can stay until Sunday or Monday and enjoy the sights here." The city, he added, could create packages designed specifically for visitors from overseas.
English Menus Matter As Much As Campaigns
Asked what ECCT, which has long pushed for Taiwan's bilingual policy, would concretely recommend, Höglund focused on access to information. It needs to include at least English, he said, and "if you can have some other European language like French and German and Spanish, perhaps that would also be very helpful."
He suggested a city-made tourist app listing the major destinations, routes, cycling routes, and food stalls, and preparing local vendors to serve foreign guests, including with English menus.
"Sometimes coming into the countryside, for example, can be very challenging for a foreign tourist because they have no idea what the menu says and it's difficult to communicate," he said. "So just these small things, they make a really big difference."
The city already has some of those pieces. In an exclusive interview with Storm Media, Mayor Kao Hung-an's office pointed to its Hsinchu Pass app and an official tourism website in Chinese, English, Japanese, and Korean. No European language other than English is on that list.
Europe Remains Taiwan's Largest Foreign Investor
Beyond tourism, Höglund said European investment in Hsinchu and Taiwan continues to grow. "Europeans are by far the largest foreign direct investors in Taiwan," he said. "We have approximately 80 billion euros of foreign direct investment invested here in total."
Much of it sits in the chip supply chain, he said, naming ASML, Air Liquide, and Merck. "It is basically very well understood that if you are in the semiconductor industry, you need to be in Taiwan and you need to be in Hsinchu."
Newer money is going elsewhere too, he said, citing offshore wind and a brewery being opened in southern Taiwan with investment from Heineken. "Taiwan is a good destination for foreign direct investment, and the investments keep coming."
Dutch Representative Sees Strength In The Combination
Pulles, who took up his post in 2025, said he has visited Hsinchu many times, almost always for the same reason. "I have to admit that most of the visits I make to Hsinchu deal with the semiconductor industry," he said, pointing to the strong Taiwan-Netherlands tie through companies such as ASML and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC). Most of those trips, he said, go to TSMC and to Dutch companies in Hsinchu Science Park.
That is also how the Dutch public sees the city. "Hsinchu has an image which is well known in the Netherlands. It is mainly very much on technology," he said. "The art now is to show the other part of Hsinchu, which has to offer much, much more than only technology." He did not see the two as competing. "That combination is the strength of Hsinchu for foreign tourists."
Eindhoven's Lesson Is To Keep Residents On Board
Asked what Hsinchu could learn from Eindhoven, the Dutch city that grew up around Philips and now anchors the region around chipmaking equipment maker ASML, Pulles pointed to the strain of rapid growth. "The expansion of the tech industry means a lot of pressure on the traditional inhabitants and people of the city of Eindhoven," he said.
The response there, he said, has been a broad dialogue among the national government, the municipality, residents, and large companies to keep the city livable and attractive while industry expands. "That costs money. That also costs giving in, and consensus from the different parties," he said. "So I would say the key is to keep the people of Eindhoven, and in this case the people of Hsinchu, involved in the development of industry as well as the development of tourism."
Pulles also offered Dutch water expertise. The Netherlands, much of it below sea level, has long managed flooding and now also faces drought, he said, and has carried out projects in Taipei and New Taipei. "We would be very happy to extend that collaboration to Hsinchu, more on the water supply, also for industry, but also for the livability of the city."
Some Things AI Cannot Teach A Visitor
Wu, whose forum talk argued that AI recommends cities that have been well written about, said good travel content comes from people who have actually walked a place. He cited the Hsinchu issue of the Japanese magazine d design travel as an example.
At the Hsinchu City God Temple, he said, one experience cannot be automated. "There is one thing AI absolutely cannot replace, which is teaching foreigners how to throw divination blocks," he said, referring to the crescent-shaped wooden blocks worshippers cast to ask a deity yes-or-no questions. "If you haven't experienced that interaction with the god yourself, you simply don't know."
The visitors he has in mind, like Höglund's, are often already in the city for work.
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