Travel industry seeks help

Travel industry representatives appealed to lawmakers yesterday to help travel agencies, saying the sector is at risk of collapse.

Hardest hit are sales of China-bound tours, which have seen a 90 percent drop as nervous customers cancelled trips over fears of severe acture respiratory syndrome (SARS) cases in China and Hong Kong.

Over the past 10 days, 500 group tours have been cancelled, Chinese-language media reported yesterday.

"The industry is under serious threat. ? We need the government's assistance to survive," said Tseng Sheng-hai (曾盛海), chairman of the Taipei Association of Travel Agents.

He urged the government to offer financial aid or to exempt travel agencies from income taxes.

If travel fears escalate, some 2,400 travel agencies employing nearly 100,000 employees may be forced to cut jobs because of sagging sales, Tseng said.

The Tourism Bureau is scheduled to discuss the issue in a special meeting next week.

On Thursday, the government announced restrictions on civil servants' visits to China, Hong Kong and Vietnam after the World Health Organization named these countries as affected areas.

Yesterday Taiwan was added to that list, sparking fears that arrivals may also suffer.

Travel on Dragon Airlines Ltd (港龍航空) between Taiwan and Hong Kong has dropped 20 percent over the past week alone. Dragon Airlines has 22 passenger flights per week between these two destinations.

The nation's two largest airlines, EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) and China Airlines Co (中華航空), which operate more than 40 passenger flights a week each to Hong Kong, reported a 5 percent cancellation rate yesterday.

Inbound tourism generates nearly NT$4 billion in revenue, or 1.4 percent of annual GDP, for Taiwan.

"The situation is very bad ? our inbound group tour sales have slid 60 percent from the same period last year," said Sung Tzu-ming (宋子明), a manager at Cherry Tourist Service Co (櫻花旅行社).

The company has specialized in bringing in visitors for more than 20 years and handles around 10,000 Japanese tourists each year.

Japan currently has no confirmed SARS cases, but has eight suspected cases, one of which is from from Taiwan, Sung said.

Japan is a major contributor to the domestic tourism market. According to the Tourism Bureau, 971,190 Japanese visited Taiwan last year, accounting for 37 percent of the total number of visitors.

The Grand Formosa Hotel, a popular choice with Japanese visitors, has seen a 10 percent cancellation rate since the outbreak of the disease, according to Ellen Chang (張筠), the hotel's public relations director.

Next to the Taipei World Trade Center, the Grand Hyatt Taipei is also seeing fewer guests.

"We have seen a several-digit drop in our occupancy rates [from the same period last year]," said Luanne Li (李佳燕), public relations manager at the Grand Hyatt Taipei. "We are not optimistic about the next two weeks as the disease continues [to spread]."

Agence France Press yesterday reported that the US government would halt non-essential travel by government employees to China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan until further notice.

"The disease as well as the Iraq war will have an immediate impact on Taiwan's tourism industry," said Tseng Kuo-chi (曾國基), an executive at the Tourism Bureau.

This will undermine the government's plan to double the annual number of foreign arrivals to 5 million by 2008, he added.