The Tourism Bureau is not considering raising the number of Chinese tourists permitted into the country per day, in order to preserve the quality of the tours, bureau Director-General Janice Lai (賴瑟珍) said yesterday.
“The number of Chinese tourists is expected to be more stable this year. Last year, the number fluctuated greatly because of factors like H1N1,” Lai said.
“Our policy is to keep the daily average quota to 3,000 Chinese tourists. There are travel and non-travel seasons in a year. We agree with the National Immigration Agency’s (NIA) policy to grant 6,000 entry permits per day during the travel season. We do not agree with the travel agents’ requests to raise the daily average quota,” she said.
Lai made the statement in response to questions from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yang Jen-fu (楊仁福) at the legislature’s Transportation Committee, which was scheduled to review the bureau’s operations.
The NIA has been receiving more than 4,000 applications for entry permits to Taiwan daily for a week. While the agency decided to accept 6,000 applications a day, it received 12,000 applications on Tuesday. Some travel agents subsequently hoped the government would negotiate with China about raising the daily average quota for Chinese tourists.
Lai said the bureau focused on raising the overall quality of tours along with the satisfaction rate among Chinese tourists.
It will not consider making any adjustment on quantity at this point, she added.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津) urged the bureau to come up with a better solution to cope with the ebb and flow of Chinese tourists.
“It’s like people with malaria, who can feel cold now and warm the next minute. Sometimes you get only 500 to 600 Chinese tourists a day. But when it’s travel season, you could get more applications than you can chew,” Yeh said, adding that it would only worsen the quality of the tour if the situation occurs repeatedly.
Yeh questioned whether the nation’s airports were safe enough to welcome tourists from overseas.
Yeh referred to an incident at Kaohsiung International Airport on March 6, when the staff at the control tower did not turn on the runway lights before a Japan Airlines Boeing 767 landed. The pilots then informed the control tower that it would initiate go-around procedures, and the aircraft eventually landed at 10:27pm.
The Civil Aeronautics Administration said yesterday the control tower staff was answering an office phone and did not turn on the lights on the runway in time for the aircraft’s landing.
The person has since been suspended from duty.
‘NEVER!’ Taiwan FactCheck Center said it had only received donations from the Open Society Foundations, which supports nonprofits that promote democratic values Taiwan FactCheck Center (TFC) has never received any donation from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a cofounder of the organization wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday. The Taipei-based organization was established in 2018 by Taiwan Media Watch Foundation and the Association of Quality Journalism to monitor and verify news and information accuracy. It was officially registered as a foundation in 2021. National Chung Cheng University communications professor Lo Shih-hung (羅世宏), a cofounder and chairman of TFC, was responding to online rumors that the TFC receives funding from the US government’s humanitarian assistance agency via the Open Society Foundations (OSF),
An alleged US government plan to encourage Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) to form a joint venture with Intel to boost US chipmaking would place the Taiwanese foundry giant in a more disadvantageous position than proposed tariffs on imported chips, a semiconductor expert said yesterday. If TSMC forms a joint venture with its US rival, it faces the risk of technology outflow, said Liu Pei-chen (劉佩真), a researcher at the Taiwan Industry Economics Database of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research. A report by international financial services firm Baird said that Asia semiconductor supply chain talks suggest that the US government would
ANNUAL LIGHT SHOW: The lanterns are exhibited near Taoyuan’s high-speed rail station and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the airport MRT line More than 400 lanterns are to be on display at the annual Taiwan Lantern Festival, which officially starts in Taoyuan today. The city is hosting the festival for the second time — the first time was in 2016. The Tourism Administration held a rehearsal of the festival last night. Chunghwa Telecom donated the main lantern of the festival to the Taoyuan City Government. The lanterns are exhibited in two main areas: near the high-speed rail (HSR) station in Taoyuan, which is at the A18 station of the Taoyuan Airport MRT, and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the MRT
Starlux Airlines on Tuesday announced it is to launch new direct flights from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to Ontario, California, on June 2. The carrier said it plans to deploy the new-generation Airbus A350 on the Taipei-Ontario route. The Airbus A350 features a total of 306 seats, including four in first class, 26 in business class, 36 in premium economy and 240 in economy. According to Starlux’s initial schedule, four flights would run between Taoyuan and Ontario per week: Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Flights are to depart from Taoyuan at 8:05pm and arrive in California at 5:05pm (local time), while return flights