The Tourism Bureau yesterday confirmed that 152 Vietnamese tourists had been reported missing after entering the nation through Kaohsiung on a special tourism visa last week.
The tourists had joined tours arranged by the ETHoliday travel agency, with one group arriving on Friday and three on Sunday, the bureau said.
The tours had 153 Vietnamese, 152 of which left the groups after their arrival in Taiwan, the bureau said, adding that ETHoliday quickly reported the incident.
Given the severity of the situation, the bureau said it has instructed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to stop granting visas to Vietnamese travelers in ETHoliday tour groups.
The tourists were able to travel to Taiwan through the ministry’s “Kuan Hung Pilot Project,” an electronic visa program designed to increase the number of quality tour groups visiting from India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, the bureau said, adding that these countries are part of the government’s New Southbound Policy.
The project, which was launched in 2015, allows travelers from the six countries on package tours of at least five people to apply for tourism visas without having to present financial statements, the bureau said.
Over the past three years, about 150 tourists arriving through the project have been reported missing, bureau statistics showed.
This was the largest group of runaway tourists since 2015, it said.
Only one Vietnamese tourist on an ETHoliday tour in the past three years has left the group and been unaccounted for, bureau statistics showed.
The travel agency in Vietnam that assists ETHoliday in forming the tour groups has lost tourists 10 times, but only one or two people each time.
The bureau said that tourists found later by immigration officials would be deported at ETHoliday’s expense.
In other developments, the number of tourists traveling between Kinmen and China’s Fujian Province via the “small three links” is expected to reach 1.85 million this year, up from 1.78 million, the Maritime Port Bureau said yesterday, adding that this would be a record high since the links opened in 2001.
The port authority said it has had 12 cases of tourists traveling via the links who carried in pork products from China without reporting them to customs, adding that they were fined because of an African swine fever outbreak, but before the government raised the fine to a minimum of NT$200,000.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
OFF-TARGET: More than 30,000 participants were expected to take part in the Games next month, but only 6,550 foreign and 19,400 Taiwanese athletes have registered Taipei city councilors yesterday blasted the organizers of next month’s World Masters Games over sudden timetable and venue changes, which they said have caused thousands of participants to back out of the international sporting event, among other organizational issues. They also cited visa delays and political interference by China as reasons many foreign athletes are requesting refunds for the event, to be held from May 17 to 30. Jointly organized by the Taipei and New Taipei City governments, the games have been rocked by numerous controversies since preparations began in 2020. Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) said yesterday that new measures by
RSS