The devastation wrought by the massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan in March appears to have had little effect on Japanese free independent travelers (FIT) visiting Taiwan, the Tourism Bureau said yesterday.
Statistics from the bureau showed that the number of FITs rose nearly 2 percent in March compared with same time period year. A total of 114,352 Japanese tourists visited Taiwan in March, an increase of 1.89 percent over the same period last year.
While some package tour groups canceled their visit to Taiwan because of the atmosphere of self-restraint that followed the earthquake, the number of FITs nevertheless continued to grow, the bureau said.
A total of 17 charter flights were scheduled to arrive in Taiwan from Japan between March 11 and Saturday last week, bringing a total of 2,558 Japanese tourists, it said.
Between Saturday last week and Friday, which is known as “Golden Week” in Japan, 300 Japanese tourists were expected to arrive at the Taichung Ching Chuang Kang Airport on three charter flights directly from Kochi and Tokushima prefectures on Shikoku Island and Toyoma Prefecture on Hongshu Island.
They are first scheduled to visit tourist attractions in the central parts of the nation first, including the Fengchia Night Market in Greater Taichung, Sun Moon Lake and the Puli Winery (埔里酒廠) before traveling to Tamsui, the National Palace Museum, Jiufen and other scenic spots.
To greet the Japanese visitors, the Greater Taichung Government said it would give each of them a box of sun cake pastries as a gift.
The bureau has raised NT$20 million (US$698,000) to support the Japan Association of Travel Agents and help victims in northeastern Japan.
Taiwanese hoteliers have also been encouraged to donate rooms to victims of the disasters while they are traveling in Taiwan.
Taiwan tops the list of countries in terms of total donations to Japan, reaching NT$5.1 billion as of April 21.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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
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