Starting today, visitors to Little Ryukyu (
Little Ryukyu is an island located southwest of the Donggang (
The administration's deputy director Chang Lung-cheng (
PHOTO: HSU MIN-JUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
A majority of ships will still leave from Donggang, he said.
In a bid to draw more visitors to the island, Chang said the administration is scheduled to host a series of tourist events through March.
The direct sea route between Kaohsiung and Little Ryukyu was part of travel arrangements designed by the administration, he said.
"We have coordinated with a boating firm and 17 local hostel operators in Little Ryukyu and worked out a two-day package tour that works for everyone," he said. "Special discounts will also be given to tourists from now until March."
From Sunday to Friday, Chang said visitors will get a 50-percent discount if they stay in any one of the 17 hostels. They will also get a 30 percent discount when they purchase entry tickets for any scenic spot.
Tickets for the voyage have been reduced from NT$380 to NT$330, he said.
Chang said that Little Ryukyu is the world's sixth largest coral reef island.
Little Ryukyu is also the only island near Taiwan that is free from the influence of the northeast seasonal wind, he said.
"It is a tourist attraction that can be visited all year round," he said.
Eighty percent of the blue fin tunas available during the Blue fin Tuna Season in Donggang come from Ryukyu, he said.
Chang also said that tourists can enjoy a star-lit sky without any light pollution.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift