The Taiwanese public has been lukewarm about travel to Central America, despite a variety of attractive packages, including ones featuring a so-called Mayan prophecy that predicts the end of the world on Dec. 21 this year, travel agents said yesterday.
It remains hard to sell any Central or South America tour packages due to local people’s unfamiliarity with the region, which is a relatively expensive travel destination, said Lion Travel Service Co, which was attending the ongoing 2012 Taipei International Travel Fair.
“Our ‘Mayan doomsday package’ was canceled because we did not have enough people to form a group,” said Lion Travel’s Mark Yen, who is responsible for developing the company’s markets for the region.
It seems the tour packages, which cost over US$10,000, are too expensive for most people, and senior citizens who are able to afford such holidays are less likely to be “doomsday buffs,” a manager surnamed Hsieh (謝) of Perfect Travel Agency said.
“Concerning cultural travel, Taiwanese people will not usually bother to travel half-way around the world when Angkor Wat in Cambodia is good enough,” he said.
Nonetheless, foreign travel companies still tried hard to tout Mayan tours at the Oct. 26-29 travel fair, which has attracted participation from 60 countries this year.
Luz Maria Martinez Rojas, a tourism representative from the Mexico Tourism Board, said now is the best time to visit Mexico to celebrate the beginning of a “new era” on Dec. 21, based on the Mayan calendar system that claims the world begins a new period every 5,125 years.
“We will hold mega-concerts and group weddings around the winter solstice,” she said, adding that as of last month, Mexico had received more than 60 million visitors.
She said the number of Taiwanese tourists who visited Mexico in the first five months of the year grew by 7 percent year-on-year.
SHIPS, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES: The ministry has announced changes to varied transportation industries taking effect soon, with a number of effects for passengers Beginning next month, the post office is canceling signature upon delivery and written inquiry services for international registered small packets in accordance with the new policy of the Universal Postal Union, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday. The new policy does not apply to packets that are to be delivered to China, the ministry said. Senders of international registered small packets would receive a NT$10 rebate on postage if the packets are sent from Jan. 1 to March 31, it added. The ministry said that three other policies are also scheduled to take effect next month. International cruise ship operators
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The Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency yesterday launched a gift box to market honey “certified by a Formosan black bear” in appreciation of a beekeeper’s amicable interaction with a honey-thieving bear. Beekeeper Chih Ming-chen (池明鎮) in January inspected his bee farm in Hualien County’s Jhuosi Township (卓溪) and found that more than 20 beehives had been destroyed and many hives were eaten, with bear droppings and paw prints near the destroyed hives, the agency said. Chih returned to the farm to move the remaining beehives away that evening when he encountered a Formosan black bear only 20m away, the agency said. The bear
Chinese embassy staffers attempted to interrupt an award ceremony of an international tea competition in France when the organizer introduced Taiwan and displayed the Republic of China flag, a Taiwanese tea farmer said in an interview published today. Hsieh Chung-lin (謝忠霖), chief executive of Juxin Tea Factory from Taichung's Lishan (梨山) area, on Dec. 2 attended the Teas of the World International Contest held at the Peruvian embassy in Paris. Hsieh was awarded a special prize for his Huagang Snow Source Tea by the nonprofit Agency for the Valorization of Agricultural Products (AVPA). During the ceremony, two Chinese embassy staffers in attendance
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