Summer would be the best time to allow foreign students to enter the country, Minister of Education Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) said yesterday amid calls from universities and other groups for the government to open borders as COVID-19 fears ease in Taiwan.
Since many of the students would need to be quarantined, they would be divided into groups and categories, with those scheduled to graduate soon and those from nations where the risk of COVID-19 is low given priority, he said.
However, when the entry of foreign students would be allowed is up to the Central Epidemic Command Center, he said.
Photo: CNA
About 8,000 students who were to graduate this year, and 42,000 students who were scheduled to begin studying in Taiwan this year, are still abroad, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) said on Sunday last week, citing Ministry of Education (MOE) data.
There are about 23,000 rooms in school dormitories or hotels that could be used for disease prevention, she said, adding that the ministry planned to establish a counter at the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, and arrange for transportation, supplies and meals for returning foreign students.
In other developments, people are eager to travel as COVID-19 fears ease, but with overseas travel restrictions still in place, domestic tourism has been the big winner, with hotels, travel agencies and amusement parks reporting high demand.
Industry sources said the upcoming long weekend for the Dragon Boat Festival would see several hotel operators in popular destinations rearch an average occupancy rate of 80 to 90 percent.
That would be the highest occupancy rate the hotels have seen since the COVID-19 outbreak began in early January, the sources said.
The average occupancy rate for hotels in resort areas in March was 36.15 percent, Tourism Bureau statistics showed.
Lion Travel Service Co (雄獅旅行社) said bookings for the June 25 to 28 weekend are 50 percent higher than last year, although the comparison might be skewed because last year’s festival weekend was only three days.
The largest increase in bookings are for Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu islands, Hualien and Taitung counties, and Kenting, Lion said.
Amusement park visitor numbers have been increasing since late last month, and operators said they are hoping for even bigger turnouts when government subsidies for park visits are issued next month.
A spokesperson for Farglory Ocean Park in Hualien County said that more than 6,000 people per day have visited the park on Saturdays and Sundays since the end of last month, up about 50 percent from a year earlier.
Taiwan has not had any domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases since April 12, leading the government to ease some of its disease-prevention restrictions.
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