The Tourism Bureau yesterday said the number of entry permits issued to Chinese tourists will be capped at 7,000 per day, adding that the new policy could take effect in May following cross-strait negotiations at the end of this month.
However, the bureau said that Taiwan and China would discuss expanding the free independent traveler (FIT) program and increasing the number of Chinese cities from which residents are allowed to come to Taiwan under FIT status.
Of the daily quota, 5,000 entry permits will be for Chinese tourists arriving with tour groups, while 2,000 are to be designated to those arriving under the FIT program.
Bureau Director-General David Hsieh (謝謂君) said the bureau would also start taking specific measures to regulate the quality of the group tours available to Chinese tourists.
Starting in April, travel agencies can only arrange high-end shopping tours once during a trip if the tour group travels exclusively around the west coast.
The limitation does not apply to shopping tours for the nation’s agricultural or other food products.
Travel agencies can arrange two high-end shopping tours if the group visits both the east and west coasts, he added.
Starting next month, at least half of the hotels in which groups stay must be starred hotels.
Hsieh said Chinese tour groups must not travel more than 250km per day, adding that a tour can join a priority list for approval if it fulfills quality standards set by the bureau.
In related news, Amway China announced yesterday that 12,000 of its employees from 19 Chinese cities would visit Taiwan next month on incentive tours offered by the company, with the first of the five batches scheduled to arrive on March 12.
The company said it has arranged a five-day tour in Taiwan for the employees, with all of them spending the nights in five-star hotels in Taipei during this period of time. They are allowed to choose one long-distance trip and one short-distance trip and have options to visit attractions in Hualien, Greater Kaoshiung, Taoyuan and New Taipei City (新北市).
The company drew media attention four years ago when it brought more than 10,000 of its employees to Taiwan through cruise ships.
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