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Tourism director promises to double Chinese tourists

Taiwan looks forward to doubling the number of Chinese visitors to 20,000 per month by the end of this year, the tourism chief said yesterday upon her arrival in Beijing to promote travel in Taiwan.

Janice Lai (賴瑟珍), director-general of the Tourism Bureau, said she would introduce Taiwan’s tourist attractions to Chinese travel agents and ordinary people during her five-day visit, which will also take her to Nanjing.

Lai was traveling with executives of more than 100 travel agencies from around Taiwan. She is visiting China in her capacity as chairwoman of the nonprofit Taiwan Tourism Association.

Lai said she believed increasing the number of nonstop weekend chartered flights across the Taiwan Strait would bring more Chinese tourists.

After the number of Chinese allowed to visit Taiwan was increased on July 18 under an agreement signed in mid-June, 85 percent of Chinese tourists arriving in Taiwan have come from provinces or cities where the nonstop flights are available.

Lai said she hoped that China’s top negotiator with Taiwan, Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), would wield his influence to push for increases in the number of such flights after his planned visit to Taiwan later this year.

Chen is scheduled to visit Taiwan later this month or early next month for a new round of talks with his Taiwanese counterpart, Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤), chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation.

The two are expected to discuss new cross-strait flight routes and destinations, the opening of direct shipping links and direct cargo chartered flights, as well as cross-strait cooperation in fighting crime.

If weekend direct flights were increased, Lai said she believed the number of Chinese tourists coming to Taiwan would doublefrom the current 10,000 per month to 20,000 by year’s end.
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