Taiwan’s travel industry is being forced to deal with many negative consequences — from damaged hotel equipment to delayed payments — coming from the influx of Chinese tourists, hotel operators and travel agencies said.
One year ago yesterday, Taiwan allowed the first Chinese tourist groups to enter the country on direct cross-strait flights. However, one year later, Taiwan’s hotel and tourism operators have more to complain about than to praise regarding their guests from across the Strait.
Although Chinese tourists did increase occupancy at hotels and boarding houses, they have also caused a lot of trouble, hotel and boarding house operators said at a meeting with Taipei County Tourism and Travel Bureau Director Chin Huei-chu (秦慧珠) earlier this week.
One hotel operator in Taipei County said that after his hotel stopped providing ashtrays following the January ban on smoking indoors, Chinese tourists began smoking in their rooms and putting their cigarettes out on the carpet and wooden tables, or use its bathroom cups as ashtrays.
Another hotel operator said that although his hotel provides ironing boards in the rooms, Chinese tourists often iron their clothes directly on the floor, burning the carpets.
He said that he had even found a missing alarm clock in the electric water boiler in the room one time after guests from China left.
Other hotel operators said that while it was not news that guests often steal towels and slippers, they still found it quite shocking that Chinese tourists would take shoe brushes, shoe horns, hangers and even closet door knobs away.
Hotel and tourism operators said that some of the other complaints they often receive about Chinese tourists include littering, walking around wearing only underwear in public areas and spitting.
Chin said that hotel operators could ask Chinese tourists to leave a deposit when they check in. However, representatives from the Tourism Bureau and travel agencies were opposed to it, saying there was no legal basis for requiring deposits and that it may make Chinese tourists feel that they are targets of discrimination.
China, on the other hand, suggested that hotels should ask travel agencies to pay for damage inflicted by their customers.
Meanwhile, travel agencies complained in a separate meeting that their partner travel agencies in China often write checks payable only after three to six months, causing them tremendous financial pressure.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY LEE WEN-YI
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) plans to make advanced 3-nanometer chips in Japan, stepping up its semiconductor manufacturing roadmap in the country in a triumph for Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s technology ambitions. TSMC is to adopt cutting-edge technology for its second wafer fab in Kumamoto, company chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said yesterday. That is an upgrade from an original blueprint to produce 7-nanometer chips by late next year, people familiar with the matter said. TSMC began mass production at its first plant in Japan’s Kumamoto in late 2024. Its second fab, which is still under construction, was originally focused on
DETERRENCE EFFORTS: Washington and partners hope demonstrations of force would convince Beijing that military action against Taiwan would carry high costs The US is considering using HMAS Stirling in Western Australia as a forward base to strengthen its naval posture in a potential conflict with China, particularly over Taiwan, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. As part of its Indo-Pacific strategy, Washington plans to deploy up to four nuclear-powered submarines at Stirling starting in 2027, providing a base near potential hot spots such as Taiwan and the South China Sea. The move also aims to enhance military integration with Pacific allies under the Australia-UK-US trilateral security partnership, the report said. Currently, US submarines operate from Guam, but the island could
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
Opposition parties not passing defense funding harms Taiwan’s national security, two US senators said separately in rare public criticism. “I am disappointed to see Taiwan’s opposition parties in parliament [the legislature] slash President [William] Lai’s (賴清德) defense budget so dramatically,” Roger Wicker, a Republican who chairs the US Senate Armed Forces Committee, said on social media. “The original proposal funded urgently needed weapons systems. Taiwan’s parliament should reconsider — especially with rising Chinese threats,” he added. Wicker’s post linked to an article published by Bloomberg that said that the two opposition parties’ move was “potentially jeopardizing the purchases of billions of dollars of
RSS