TOURISM
Old hotels to get makeover
The government plans to help 500 hotels upgrade their operations, a project that is expected to create thousands of jobs and greatly boost sales, Cabinet officials said. The plan, part of a government initiative to reinvigorate the country’s 50 old-economy industries, will target old hotels for evaluations to spur them to improve their facilities and services, the officials said. The project also aims to promote brand-building among hotels and assist them in joining a worldwide booking system, they said. The project is expected to create 6,000 jobs, NT$13.8 billion (US$460 million) in revenues and NT$1.92 billion in investments. Taiwan registered 6.08 million foreign tourist arrivals last year, 91 percent of whom stayed in hotels. In the first half of this year, tourist hotels generated more than NT$25.7 billion in revenue, up 6.55 percent from last year, government data showed.
TRAVEL
HK policy attracts Taiwanese
Preferential treatment for Taiwanese travelers to Hong Kong allowing them to apply online for a visa without charge is expected to attract more Taiwanese to the territory, a Hong Kong tour operator association said on Saturday. The new measure, scheduled to take effect on Sept. 1, will be especially attractive to young travelers, Hong Kong Inbound Tour Operators Association chairman Ricky Tse (謝淦廷) said. As a result of the online visa application measure, the number of visitors to Hong Kong is expected to increase by 10 percent this year, he said. The Hong Kong-based China Travel Service said it is already planning preferential tour packages for Taiwanese to expand its client pool. The company is considering launching Hong Kong ecology tours to attract more Taiwanese tour groups, a spokesman for the tour agency said, adding that most Taiwanese travelers are not keen on shopping, but are more interested in gourmet food as well as cultural and natural attractions.
CRIME
Manila arrests Taiwanese
Philippine police said yesterday they had arrested five Taiwanese men who allegedly operated a clandestine laboratory that produced methamphethamine hydrochloride. Senior Police Superintendent Prudencio Tom Banas said about 20kg of what is suspected to be methamphethamine was found in a house where the Taiwanese men were arrested yesterday in Paranaque city in the capital region. Other chemicals used to make the drug were found in the two-story residence, he said. A caretaker told investigators the men had rented the house for a year. A police crackdown has led to the discovery of a number of illegal drug labs in residential enclaves, including an upscale area where top government officials live.
TOURISM
Train tickets get convenient
People will soon be able to book train tickets two weeks in advance in any of the nation’s four main convenience store chains, the Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) said yesterday. The railway operator said the service, which will be launched at 10pm on Wednesday at convenience stores nationwide run by President Chain Store Corp, FamilyMart, OK-Mart and Hi-Life will be available daily from 6am to 11:30pm. Consumers will be charged NT$8 per ticket purchase, the railway administration office said.
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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