Tourism: Chinese from Singapore visit

The first tourist group of Chinese from Southeast Asia finished its week-long visit of Taiwan and departed for Singapore yesterday. Twelve of the 15-member group come from China and they are permanent residents or have work permits in Singapore. Most of them are professionals who paid around S$1,000 (US$575) for the trip, the group leader, surnamed Chiang, said. Chiang said that this was the first Chinese tourist group from Southeast Asia, most of the previous 11 groups had come from Japan and the US. She added that there will be three to four groups a month coming to Taiwan in the future. Each group will have about 20 people. There will be a larger group of 100 during the Mid-autumn Moon Festival, which falls on Sept. 21 this year, Chiang said.