The government-backed credit-card travel plan, which offers civil servants a NT$16,000 annual subsidy to spend on domestic sightseeing, is expected to be a boon for the local tourism industry, officials said last week.
"The plan is expected to bring in an extra NT$70 to NT$80 million in income annually," said Hwang Sheng-chin (
Hwang made the comments at a reception on Friday when a group of government officials from the Cabinet-level Council of Economic Planning and Development made a two-day inspection tour to conduct a test run of the travel plan.
He said that two thirds of the farm's income comes from renting out its log cabins, whose occupancy rates average around 80 percent. But the farm's cabins are not listed under the plan because the owner doesn't have a proper license.
Hwang urged the Council of Agriculture to cut the red tape and accelerate its license application so that the plan's 480,000 civil servants can have the option to visit.
A government-contracted hotelier said that more tourists during the weekdays would be a big plus for the local economy.
"We are in an odd situation where the county's hotels are overloaded with weekend tourists -- with almost 100 percent occupation rates -- while there are few patrons on weekdays," said Liang Ching-cheng (
Weekend visitors sometimes lodge complaints over the "polarized" occupancy rates since they may have to pay higher fees for rooms, Liang said. Visitors often leave less than satisfied because the area's attractions are overcrowded and traffic is congested, he said.
To encourage weekday visitors, Liang said the hotel offers promotional room rates as low as NT$3,000 per night.
He welcomed visits by government workers after the facility becomes a government-contracted tourist outlet under the travel plan.
Despite the praise from the commercial sector, the plan has met with criticism from government workers, who complain that their travel options are highly restricted to government-designated sites and time slots.
Leading the official inspection tour in Hualien last week, Council of Economic Planning and Development Vice Chairman Hsieh Fa-dah (謝發達) said that the government's travel plan, whose goal is to boost the local tourism industry, is still undergoing revisions.
"We'll fine-tune the plan by coming up with improvements," he said.
Card users are entitled to discounts of up to 50 percent, he said. But he said that the county government needs to recruit more tourist outlets to take part in the project.
The number of contracted outlets nationwide has increased from 5,900 in February to 8,719 in March, the Tourism Bureau said.
Officials seem divided over the travel plan. While paying a visit to the newly opened Hualien Ocean Park (
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last