Travel agents want government help to weather outbreak

Local agent yesterday equated severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) with the deadly earthquake that struck Taiwan on Sept. 21, 1999, which caused at least US$9.2 billion in property damage in addition to the deaths of at least 2,400 people and injuries to some 8,000 others.

Representatives major travel agencies in central Taiwan jointly called for the government to help save their business operations by sparing them from business taxes for one year and use the governmental Employment Stability Fund to help those agents and their staff who become jobless because of SARS repercussions.

At the news conference hosted by Legislator Chien Chao-tung (簡肇棟) of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, Ho Ming-hsien, owner of a Taichung-based travel agency and chairman of the Taiwan Travel Agencies Self-Relief Alliance, said that since the outbreak of the deadly flu-like SARS in Guangdong province and Hong Kong in early March, Taiwan travel agencies' business has plummeted 95 percent, marking the worst hit in 30 years.

Since tourism in China and Hong Kong has been a major source of business for Taiwan's travel agencies over the past several years, the SARS outbreak is dealing a devastating blow to them, Ho said.

Nine have already closed down because of customers' cancelling or postponing tours to China, Ho said.