The number of Chinese tour groups expected to visit Taiwan during the week-long Chinese National Day holiday that begins today will grow only minimally from last year due to a new policy aimed at promoting “high-quality tours,” travel agents said yesterday.
Since the government only announced the new policy in August, many travel agents have not been able to make the necessary arrangements, executives with Taipei-based Phoenix Tours said.
Under the new measures that take effect today, high-quality tour packages targeting Chinese can only include one shopping stop during their stay, down from two at present. Also, the tour groups must arrive on direct flights, without stops in third areas such as Hong Kong and Macau.
The Tourism Bureau has been promoting high-quality tours since May last year.
Of the daily limit of 5,000 Chinese allowed to travel to Taiwan in tour groups, half of the quota is reserved for those joining tours considered to be higher in quality. These tourists are also given priority to obtain permits to enter the nation.
To meet the definition of high quality, a tour schedule cannot include more than 12 hours of activities per day, and a group’s tour buses cannot cover more than 250km per day.
In addition, one-third of the stay must be at star-rated hotels, with the total cost for lunch and dinner reaching at least NT$500 per person per day and the number of shopping stops not exceeding the number of nights of their stay.
Though the new policy might limit the growth of Chinese tour groups this year compared with a year earlier, the number of independent Chinese travelers could increase during the holiday, agents said.
Travel agents said that because of democracy protests in Hong Kong, many Chinese might avoid visiting the territory this week and choose to come to Taiwan instead.
The number of independent Chinese travelers visiting Taiwan has grown steadily since the government opened the nation to this category of Chinese tourists in 2011, with an increase of between 20 and 30 percent this year alone, the agents said.
Independent travelers usually prefer more in-depth tours and tend to stay longer, they added.
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