In a bid to draw more tourists to visit Taiwan's southern neighbor, Philippine tourism authorities yesterday released a series of travel packages featuring the "wonders" of the Philippines.
The Manila Economic and Cultural Office in Taiwan has made the visa application procedure easier for travel to the Philippines. Applicants can obtain their visas the same day they send the applications, said Department of Tourism Secretary Richard Gordon yesterday.
The office has also set up a visa service counter at the Kaohsiung International Airport.
"Passengers can now get their visas just before they board their flights," Gordon said.
Adding that the Philippines is only one-and-a-half hours away by air, Gordon encouraged Taiwan's airlines to increase services between Taiwan and Philippine tourist destinations.
Gordon also spoke on security concerns that deter many tourists from visiting the archipelago.
Urging the media to report fairly on the actual security situation, Gordon stressed his country has a low crime rate and makes a special effort to ensure a safe time is had by all tourists. These efforts have included increasing police numbers and tightening community vigilance against crime, he said.
Gordon also urged Taiwan's government to loosen restrictions on Filipinos applying for visas.
The travel packages unveiled by Gordon emphasized scuba diving, shopping, golfing, trekking, clubbing, surfing and dream weddings, among others.
"The Philippines is to scuba divers what Switzerland is to skiers, Hawaii to surfers, and Nepal to mountaineers" is how international magazine Action Asia Adventure Travel Guide describes the Philippines' dive experience.
Gordon, who hopes to establish a reputation for the Philippines as "the dive center of Asia," said scuba divers can explore the underwater world with whales swimming just "an arm away."
Gordon's department has created wedding packages in key tourist destinations for as low as NT$13,600 in a bid to promote the country as a prime Asian holiday wedding destination.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching