The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said it is planning to issue vouchers for foreign visitors to help the tourism sector recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the plan, individual travelers might be given a NT$5,000 voucher and travelers in groups might be given subsidies worth NT$10,000 to NT$20,000 each group, Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) said.
Separately, employers in the hospitality sector who raise the wages of service staff or janitors would be given a monthly subsidy of NT$5,000 to encourage them to improve the quality of service at hotels, he said.
Photo: CNA
Funding for the vouchers and subsidies would be drawn from the budget for the “special act for strengthening economic and social resilience after the pandemic and sharing economic results with the public,” which the Legislative Yuan passed on Tuesday, the ministry said.
The ministry would implement the plan as soon as lawmakers pass the budget for the act, it said.
The plan is part of the ministry’s goal to attract 6 million foreign visitors to Taiwan this year.
Meanwhile, EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) announced that it expects to operate as many flights between Taiwan and three major US cities by May as it did before the pandemic.
The airline is to increase the number of daily flights between Taoyuan and Los Angeles from two to three, starting on March 27, it said in a statement.
The number of flights between Taoyuan and Chicago is to increase from three to seven per week, starting on May 1, and daily flights between Taoyuan and San Francisco are to increase from two to three, the airline said.
That would bring the weekly total number of flights to the three US cities to 49, the same number as before the pandemic, it said.
The frequency of flights to European destinations would be increased from two to four per week, bringing the total number of weekly flights to 32, the airline said.
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