With foreign and local tourists scrapping travel plans due to fears over SARS, some travel agencies are seeking to lure travelers back with budget packages.
"We've finalized talks with several five-star hotels in Hualien to launch three-day-and-two-night packages at around NT$6,000," Roget Hsu (許高慶), secretary-general of the Travel Agent Association (中華民國旅行公會), said yesterday.
Top rate hotels are keen to help jump start toursim, including Promised Land Resort (理想大地), Chinatrust Hualien Hotel (花蓮中信), Parkview Hotel (美侖) and Grand Formosa Taroko (晶華天祥).
"So far, five hoteliers have expressed interest in our plan and may start introducing packages later this week," Hsu said.
The association will continue to talk with other destinations such as Janfusun Fancy World (
Other agencies have chosen to target places that are not on the list of SARS-affected countries including Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Europe, Yu said.
Local travel agencies are witnessing the worst hit in 30 years, Hsu said.
"The situation is very bad as we only arranged one group tour to China this month and none for next month," said Yu Fu-yun (
As more than 95 percent of group tours have scrapped plans to travel China because of SARS, Yu said some small and medium-sized agencies specializing in organizing outbound trips to China, Hong Kong and Macau, were already forced to suspend their operations temporarily.
Closures
Four travel agencies have closed recently because of tourists cancelling or delaying their trips to China, Hsu said. Some others have opted to either cut employee salaries by half or ask employees to work alternate days, he said.
Hsu said he hopes the government can intervene to help bail out the troubled tourism industry and encourage civil servants to take domestic trips arranged by agencies.
Hsu estimates the government-backed credit-card travel plan will create between NT$5 billion and NT$6 billion in business opportunities for the industry, as the plan offers civil servants a NT$16,000 annual subsidy to spend on domestic sightseeing.
Taiwan has around 240,000 civil servants.
Government officials have suggested local agents shift from outbound to domestic travel to stay afloat.
But industry pundits called the idea "superficial."
"That idea is only for the consumption of non-industry people," Yu said.
Liu Fu-chun (
As a result, the nation's unemployment rate may top 6 percent, up from 5.17 percent in February, said Wayne Shiah (
Some 60,000 people work for 1,900 agencies registered with the Tourism Bureau.
Sixty-one percent of industry officials say they are willing to accept pay cuts or unpaid leave to help their companies weather the tough times, according to the latest opinion poll conducted by the 1111 Job Bank yesterday.
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