The number of free independent travelers (FIT) from China who visited Taiwan during the first 100 days of the program has only reached 18 percent of the total allowed, National Immigration Agency statistics showed.
The reason the FIT program is showing such “dismal” results is because the government rushed into it without initiating adequate supplementary measures, members of the tourism industry said.
While senior government officials in Taiwan and China have been spouting slogans, the tourism industry has suffered, they said.
Sept. 30 marked the 100th day since Taiwan first began allowing FITs to visit.
Several hoteliers have spent substantial amounts of money remodeling in anticipation of a flood of Chinese FITs and now they do not know when, or if, they will recoup their money, tourism industry officials said.
Chen Chr-ji (陳墀吉), associate professor at Shih Hsin University’s Department of Tourism, said the tourism industry had entered a stage of “meager profits.”
The industry is being sacrificed for the sake of politics “and with Chinese tourist arrivals showing such dismal numbers, the government must make policy adjustments,” Chen said.
Agency statistics show that 14,013 Chinese tourists applied to be an FIT from June 28 through Sept. 30, of which 13,362 were approved. However, only 8,535 entered Taiwan proper, on average about 90 per day, or 18 percent of the 500 allowed daily under the program.
Tourism Bureau Secretary-General Chang Hsi-tsung (張錫聰) said the FIT program was still in an integration period.
The low number of FITs is because of a troublesome process on the Chinese side and the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) is scheduled to hold a meeting to review the matter, Chang said.
“We’re debating whether to expand the number of try-out cities and we will also recommend allowing applications for FIT status abroad, as well as simplifying the process to entice more Chinese tourists,” Chang said. “We hope that everyone will deal with the issue calmly.”
Sources said the FIT policy review could include an increase or decrease in the maximum number of visitors allowed per day.
While the limit would not likely be increased in the short term, the possibility of it being decreased is real, a source said.
The National Immigration Agency said this week coincides with the Oct. 1 holiday period in China, a peak period for tourists, and the number of people applying for FIT permits has been increasing.
There were 527 Chinese FITs in Taiwan last Saturday and 633 on Sunday, which shows that people are taking advantage of the holiday period, the agency said.
However, government data showed that the number dropped to 434 on Monday and 296 on Tuesday.
After the holiday period, the number of Chinese tourists should fall again, Chen said, adding that efforts by the government to boost the numbers by using one short holiday period were meaningless.
The government should focus instead on the total profits and benefits in a three-month period, Chen said.
Some tourism industry members had said prior to the implementation of the program that annual profits from FITs could reach between NT$13 billion (US$424 million) and NT$14 billion within a year.
“The government made everything look nice, but in fact it doesn’t have the supplementary measures to make everything work, including problems such as the complex processing of FIT applications and responsibility issues when Chinese tourists overstay,” Lion Travel domestic tourism products department manger Lee Cheng-tsung (李正聰) said.
Translated by Jake Chung, staff writer
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