The travel volume between Kinmen and China’s Fujian Province via the “small three links” last month rose 31.3 percent from the same period last year, the Kinmen County Tourism Department said on Monday.
A total of 189,383 passengers either came from or traveled to Fujian Province, up from 144,204 during the same period last year, the department said, citing National Immigration Agency statistics.
Kinmen’s visitor arrivals from China totaled 43,484, an increase of 12,804, or 41.7 percent, from a year earlier, the department said.
Agency data showed that there were 6,936 Chinese who applied for entry permits on arrival, an increase of 59.9 percent from the same period last year, the department added.
From January to last month, a total of 1,241,640 travelers used the “small three links,” an increase of 105,896, or 9.3 percent, from the same period last year, it said.
During the period, Chinese travelers entering Kinmen totaled 251,068, an increase of 34,930, or 16.1 percent, from the same period last year, while visa-on-arrival travelers totaled 37,353, an increase of 11,454, or 44.2 percent, it said.
The statistics show that the number of Chinese travelers entering Kinmen is definitely increasing, department Director-General Chen Mei-ling (陳美齡) said.
Kinmen’s small and medium-sized tourism-related industries have benefited from the visiting Chinese, who generally come to the county as independent travelers, she said.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai