Starting Saturday, direct marketing firm Pro Health (China) Co (寶健中國) is scheduled to send about 10,000 employees on an incentive tour to Taiwan.
The employees will arrive in seven separate groups between Oct. 30 and Nov. 24.
They will embark on a six-day tour and check out tourist attractions in Taipei City, Taichung City, as well as Taipei, Changhua and Nantou counties, but will skip Kaohsiung.
Company president Jason Li (李道) denied that there were political considerations in the way it arranged the tour. He said they made the reservations a while ago.
Li estimated the incentive tour could bring more than NT$600 million (US$20 million) to Taiwan.
The travel agency that helped arrange the tour for Pro Health said that many of the Pro Health employees who will come this time have never visited Taiwan before.
Though the employees cannot visit Alishan this time, Li said they could still see Taipei 101, which in his words was the “New Alishan.”
In related news, a Chinese tourism delegation headed by National Tourism Administration Vice Chairman Wang Zhifa (王志發) arrived in Taiwan yesterday for a cross-strait travel fair that is scheduled to open tomorrow in Taipei.
Wang said that the delegation would be the biggest from China ever to attend a travel fair in Taiwan.
The Chinese group is comprised of 486 representatives from 308 different tourism offices in provinces, administrative regions and cities, and travel agencies throughout China, Wang said.
The travel fair — jointly organized by the Taiwan Visitors Association and the Beijing-based Cross-Strait Tourism Exchange Association — will be held in conjunction with the 2009 Taipei International Travel Fair at the Taipei World Trade Center from tomorrow to Monday.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CNA
Yangmingshan National Park authorities yesterday urged visitors to respect public spaces and obey the law after a couple was caught on a camera livestream having sex at the park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) earlier in the day. The Shilin Police Precinct in Taipei said it has identified a suspect and his vehicle registration number, and would summon him for questioning. The case would be handled in accordance with public indecency charges, it added. The couple entered the park at about 11pm on Thursday and began fooling around by 1am yesterday, the police said, adding that the two were unaware of the park’s all-day live
Fast food chain McDonald's is to raise prices by up to NT$5 on some products at its restaurants across Taiwan, starting on Wednesday next week, the company announced today. The prices of all extra value meals and sharing boxes are to increase by NT$5, while breakfast combos and creamy corn soup would go up by NT$3, the company said in a statement. The price of the main items of those meals, if ordered individually, would remain the same. Meanwhile, the price of a medium-sized lemon iced tea and hot cappuccino would rise by NT$3, extra dipping sauces for chicken nuggets would go up
Yangmingshan National Park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) nature area has gone viral after a park livestream camera observed a couple in the throes of intimate congress, which was broadcast live on YouTube, drawing large late-night crowds and sparking a backlash over noise, bright lights and disruption to wildlife habitat. The area’s livestream footage appeared to show a couple engaging in sexual activity on a picnic table in the park on Friday last week, with the uncensored footage streamed publicly online. The footage quickly spread across social media, prompting a tide of visitors to travel to the site to “check in” and recreate the
Minister of Digital Affairs Lin Yi-ching (林宜敬) yesterday cited regulatory issues and national security concerns as an expert said that Taiwan is among the few Asian regions without Starlink. Lin made the remarks on Facebook after funP Innovation Group chief executive officer Nathan Chiu (邱繼弘) on Friday said Taiwan and four other countries in Asia — China, North Korea, Afghanistan and Syria — have no access to Starlink. Starlink has become available in 166 countries worldwide, including Ukraine, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, in the six years since it became commercial, he said. While China and North Korea block Starlink, Syria is not