The travel volume between Kinmen and China’s Fujian Province via the “small three links” in the first five months was up 3.12 percent, the Kinmen County Government’s Tourism Department said.
A total of 727,410 passengers either came from or traveled to Fujian Province, up from 705,412 during the same period last year, the department said, citing National Immigration Agency statistics.
Taiwanese accounted for 57.08 percent of the total (415,239), Chinese for 40.61 percent (295,414) and other nationalities for 2.3 percent (16,751).
Photo: CNA
Kinmen’s visitor arrivals from China totaled 146,556, an increase of 9.18 percent from last year’s 134,228, the department said in a news release.
The increase could be attributed to an easing of restrictions by the agency, which included lowering the on-arrival entry permit fees for Chinese, which took effect on Jan. 1.
Agency data showed there were 21,149 Chinese who applied for entry permits on arrival, an increase of 37.82 percent from the same period last year, the department said.
The increase in the number of tourists arriving from China could also be attributed to a series of festivities organized by the county government in April, such as the Straits Travel Fair, department Director-General Chen Mei-ling (陳美齡) said.
Tourism has become more diversified, and as such, the county would continue to develop cultural itineraries to appeal to Chinese tourists, Chen said.
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Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
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The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift