Government uses travel card for tourism

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 (黃盛欽), executive vice president of Shinkong Chao Feng Co (新光兆豐公司), which runs the nation's largest recreational farm in Hualien.

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 (梁清政), founder of the five-star Promisedland Resort (理想大地) in Hualien.

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 (花蓮海洋公園), one official said that he enjoys making trips during the week because the expenses are lower and the traffic is much smoother. But another official said that the atmosphere during weekdays is less festive since most sites are almost vacant.