Chinese living or studying outside China, or in Hong Kong or Macau, from Friday next week can apply to visit Taiwan for tourism, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) announced yesterday.
In 2019, about 93,000 Chinese passport holders entered Taiwan on tourist visas from the two territories or a third country, MAC data showed.
The council said that it would spend the next 30 days working with Ministry of Transportation and Communications officials to prepare for the resumption of cross-strait tourism, which has been suspended for more than three years.
Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times
“In the initial phase, 2,000 Chinese tourists who are traveling in package tours would be allowed to enter Taiwan per day,” the council said. “Likewise, the number of Taiwanese group tour visitors to China would be capped at 2,000 per day.”
“When cross-strait tourism could resume would depend largely on China’s response to the new policy,” it said.
The Tourism Bureau said that the one-month preparation period is necessary to ensure the level of tour quality that Taiwanese travelers would have in China.
“Travel agencies, tour guides, tourism resources, hotels and accommodation have changed dramatically in the past three years, in Taiwan and in China,” the bureau said.
“We would use this one-month period to discuss with travel operators the things that Taiwanese tour groups should take heed of when they are in China,” it added.
“We will also work out a practical mechanism to adjust the caps on visitors,” it said.
To help ensure the safety of Taiwanese traveling in China, including Hong Kong and Macau, Taiwanese travel operators are obligated to inform customers ahead of time about things they should heed, the bureau said.
Each tour group must be accompanied by a Taiwanese tour manager, who is responsible for informing the bureau whenever an emergency occurs, the bureau added.
When receiving requests for assistance, the bureau would seek to address issues through established channels of communication with China, it said.
“The MAC has produced brochures on behaviors that could constitute contraventions of China’s Counter-Espionage Act and Hong Kong’s National Security Law, as well as advisories for traveling in China,” it said. “We would ask travel agencies to distribute these materials to tourists ahead of the trips or explain them to the tourists in information sessions.”
For Taiwanese travel agencies hosting Chinese tour groups in Taiwan, the bureau is to begin hosting information sessions next month to help them review the regulations, including the procedures to apply for entry permits for Chinese tourists, rules for hosting them and informing government authorities if any travelers go missing, it said.
Meanwhile, Chinese business travelers from Monday next week would be allowed to enter Taiwan to attend trade shows, although Chinese nationals working in “high-tech industries,” as defined by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, are only allowed to visit with special permission from the government, the MAC said.
“We are glad to see that Taiwan and China can gradually resume two-way tourism exchange, which is the last piece of puzzle in Taiwan’s tourism market after the COVID-19 pandemic,” Travel Quality Assurance Association spokesman Ringo Lee (李奇嶽) said.
“It would simultaneously stimulate the growth of airlines, travel agencies, hotels and restaurants,” Lee said.
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