Consumer groups and legislators said yesterday that recent incidents involving Taiwanese tourists taking luxury cruises show that existing laws and regulations are unable to ensure the safety and quality of cruises offered by cruise operators.
Following three incidents involving Malaysian-owned Star Cruise (
Three months ago, a Taiwanese man, Lin Tze-huang (林澤煌) was reported missing after a three-day cruise organized by Star Cruise aboard the Star Virgo, while en route from Malaysia to Singapore.
According to surveillance video tapes taken from the ship, an unidentified object was shown going overboard on Sept. 15, the day Lin went missing.
But as all the liners owned by the firm are Panamanian registered and the place the man went missing was on the high seas near Singapore, the case remains the jurisdiction of Singaporean and Panamanian authorities.
The reason for the incident is still unclear.
A second travel dispute involving the same firm occurred two months later. A cruise from Keelung to Okinawa was reportedly canceled abruptly, angering 400 travelers who said they had been looking forward to the trip. Complaining over what they said was insufficient compensation and the slow response of the cruise company, the would-be travelers tossed eggs at Star Cruise's branch office.
Then, in early December, a woman known only by her family name of Ko, reported to the Keelung police that she had been robbed during a Star Cruise organized holiday. Ko claimed her loss totaled NT$3 million.
New Party legislator Lai Shi-pao (賴士葆) criticized the government's response to the three incidents, citing that as cruise businesses are still relatively new to Taiwan, administrative mechanisms within the government are inadequate for dealing with problems that might arise.
"Where are consumer protection officials? And where are the investigation reports from the Bureau of Tourism?" Lai asked.
Su Chin-hsia (蘇錦霞), secretary-general of the Consumers' Foundation, said responsibility for regulating the cruise business was divided between three different government units -- the Bureau of Tourism, the Bureau of Cruise Affairs and the Keelung Harbor Bureau -- and that a single, unified supervisory unit was lacking.
Existing units, he said, could only administer light punishments if firms failed to register ship routes. But with Star Cruise disputes, the government lacks any authority to deal effectively with them, she said.
Su also pointed out that currently travel contracts provided by travel companies to their customers are without any descriptions as to itineraries, which may undermine consumers' rights.
According to Peggy Lee (李佩), Star Cruise's marketing manager, the case of the missing passenger was still under investigation by the Panamanian police. She added that Keelung police said they were still investigating the robbery, and that as results of both investigations had not yet emerged, it was too early to say if the cruise company was responsible.
But Lee said Star Cruise has improved its safety measures by installing more surveillance cameras on its ships. She also said the company had set up compensation procedures and legalized its methods of canceling cruises and changing itineraries, she said.
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