Tourism industry groups across the Taiwan Strait are expected to have more opportunities to exchange information at upcoming travel fairs, after the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) gave the green light for the local tourism industry to participate in China's Kunming travel fair later this month.
The MAC also agreed recently that Chinese tourism groups be invited to set up stalls at the Taipei International Travel Fair (Taipei ITF) next year.
Chang Shuo-lao (張學勞), chairman of the Taiwan Visitors' Association (TVA) organizing the Taipei ITF, said that he will lead more than 200 businesspeople from the local tourism sector to take part in Kunming's fair, which is held annually by Beijing's official tourism bureau.
"The group heading to Kunming will be comprised of Taiwan-based international airlines, travel agencies, hotels, restaurants, department stores and local visitors' associations," Chang said.
As it will be the first time that the Taiwanese tourism industry will be represented at the fair, China has called the first night of performances "Taiwan Night" as a welcome, he said.
The two-way exchanges in the tourism industry across the Strait are generally regarded as a kind of warm-up to the much-touted opening-up of Taiwan to Chinese tourists.
Although it's too late for the Chinese tourism industry to participate in this year's Taipei ITF -- to be held from Nov. 17 to Nov. 20 -- the fair's host, TVA, has arranged a forum on cross-strait tourism at the same time and invited Chinese academics to give keynote speeches.
Chang said that he expected that at least 250 stalls will be reserved for various Chinese tourism concerns at the Taipei ITF next year.
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