The Consumers’ Foundation yesterday said its latest survey of 15 well-known campsites across the nation showed that 67 percent did not specify whether they have public liability insurance, and a majority have strict cancelation, change and refund policies designated by the managing company.
Citing Camping Association of the Republic of China data, the foundation said there are more than 2 million people in Taiwan who regularly go camping, and an online campsite database showed that there are 1,759 sites in the nation, an increase of 438, or 33 percent, from 2015.
Camping has become a popular outdoor activity in the nation, but the Mandatory and Prohibitory Provisions of Standard Contracts for Individual Travelers Booking Room (個別旅客訂房定型化契約應記載及不得記載事項), which came into effect in January after a revision, does not cover campsites, the foundation said.
Photo courtesy of the Comsumers’ Foundation
The survey found that 10 campsites did not specify if they have public liability insurance.
One campsite manager said the campsite has public liability insurance, but the information was not disclosed on its Web site, the foundation said.
The survey found that only one campsite does not require a deposit when making a booking.
Four campsites said their refund or cancelation, change and refund policies are in line with the provisions, while 10 campsites have their own policies, which are stricter than hotel booking policies, the survey found.
Foundation chairman Yu Kai-hsiung (游開雄) said there is no law that requires campsite operators to have public liability insurance, but as campsites are similar to non-fixed hotels, they should be required by law to have public liability insurance to ensure customers’ rights in case of accidents.
The Tourism Bureau should cover the campsites with the provisions, or have a set of mandatory and prohibitory provisions of standard contracts, especially for campsite reservations, to avoid disputes that might be caused by different interpretations of non-standardized refund policies, Yu 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:
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