The government would allow group tours to China to proceed after tomorrow if they have already been arranged, the Executive Yuan said yesterday, after it reversed a previous decision to reopen Taiwan to cross-strait tour groups.
“The Ministry of Transportation and Communications previously allowed group tours to China to continue until May 31, and ordered those that were scheduled to leave on June 1 and afterward to be canceled or merged with groups leaving before that date,” Executive Yuan spokesman Chen Shi-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference after a Cabinet meeting.
However, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) took into consideration that there are still a lot of tour groups that had been planned and were not able to visit China before today, Chen said.
Photo: Bloomberg
“To protect travelers and travel agencies, the government would allow tours to continue if they were arranged before the ban takes effect on Saturday,” he added.
The government is to periodically review the policy to see if any changes are necessary, he said.
Cho reiterated in the Cabinet meeting the government’s position of welcoming Chinese tourists, Chen said.
“The premier hopes that cross-strait tourism could be resumed in an equitable manner, and that China would reciprocate by showing goodwill and contributing to peace across the Taiwan Strait,” Chen said.
The ministry in November last year unilaterally announced that the ban on group tours to China would be lifted on March 1, and asked China to reciprocate by allowing Chinese tour groups to visit Taiwan.
However, after President William Lai (賴清德) was elected in January, Nauru severed ties with Taipei and established diplomatic relations with China.
In February, China announced that it would unilaterally activate the use of its self-designated M503, W122 and W123 flight routes.
Taipei on Feb. 7 announced that the group tour ban would be implemented again from next month.
Last month, the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced that it would allow residents from China’s Fujian Province to visit Lienchiang County, and later allow them to travel to Taiwan proper once express ferry services between Fujian’s Pingtan County and Taiwan proper resume.
Taiwan allows individual travelers to visit China, while China bans individuals and group tours from traveling to Taiwan.
About 110,000 Taiwanese on group tours have visited China since March, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Lee Li-jane (李麗珍) told the news conference.
About 20,000 more are scheduled to visit next month, Lee said.
While at least 130,000 Taiwanese on group tours are expected to visit China this year, no Chinese tour groups have arrived in Taiwan so far, Lee said.
The government has shown goodwill by lifting its ban on group tours to China, especially considering that Beijing launched large-scale military exercises around Taiwan soon after Lai’s inauguration on Monday last week and prevented Taiwan from participating in the World Health Assembly (WHA) this year, she said.
Although travel agencies in Fujian are scheduled to travel to Lienchiang on June 10 to scout potential tour routes, Lee said that China should lift all restrictions, which would facilitate healthy and equitable cross-strait tourism.
There was already a tourism deficit between Taiwan and China prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Tourism Administration Director-General Chou Yung-hui (周永暉) said.
About 4.04 million Taiwanese tourists visited China in 2019, while only 2.71 million Chinese tourists traveled to Taiwan, Chou said.
Travel Quality Assurance Association spokesman Ringo Lee (李奇嶽) said the group tour ban is still in place, even though the government is allowing prearranged tours to proceed next month.
“Travel agents hope that the ban would be lifted. Our businesses would suffer if we cannot advertise tours to China,” he said. “It is like we are entitled to sit at the table and eat, but we are now forced to do so by hiding in the corners.”
Travel agents are closely watching whether China keeps its promise by allowing tourists from Fujian to visit Lienchiang, and whether ferry services between Pingtan and Taiwan proper would be resumed, he added.
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