About 20 tourists from China’s Jiangsu Province will visit Taiwan on Sept. 19 for six days of health checks and sightseeing arranged by Taipei’s Shin Kong Wu Ho-Su Memorial Hospital and the China-based Jiangsu China Travel Service (JSCTS).
Hung Tzu-jen (洪子仁), director of a health management center affiliated with the hospital, said that in addition to the positron emission tomography (PET) scans previously given, the Chinese visitors will also undergo 256-slice cardiac computed tomography (CT) scans. Both are non-invasive checks.
Hung said that 256-slice CT-scans are used as a fast and non-invasive method for detecting vascular calcification of the coronary arteries and for accurate diagnosis of cardiovascular, peripheral vascular and other diseases.
PET scans are performed to detect cancer and to determine whether a cancer has spread in the body, and is a popular health check item among Chinese medical tourists visiting Taiwan.
The tour package costs about 15,000 Chinese yuan (US$2,200) per person.
At the end of the year, the number of Chinese tourists from Jiangsu visiting Taiwan for health checks is expected to reach 25,000, JSCTS general manager Yang Qilong (楊奇龍) said.
In related news, Taipei-based China Airlines (CAL) announced that beginning next month for a limited period, it will cut prices by at least 10 percent for individual passengers flying economy class on routes between Taiwan and certain cities in China.
From Sept. 1 to Dec. 31, passengers on CAL flights from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Taipei Songshan Airport to Beijing, Shanghai’s Pudong and Hongqiao airports, Nanjing and Ningbo, as well as flights between Kaohsiung and Pudong Airport, will enjoy the discounted prices.
Under the program, the prices of one-year, three-month, one-month and 14-day validity economy round-trip tickets on the routes will be cut, the company said.
CAL said the biggest cut would be on one-year tickets for flights between Taipei and Nanjing and between Taipei and Ningbo, at 27.3 percent. Group tickets will not be included in the price cut.
Following CAL’s announcement on Tuesday, EVA Airways announced it would follow suit on its cross-strait flights, as well as on flights elsewhere in Asia, Europe and North America.
Prices for individual economy class flights from Taoyuan and Kaohsiung to Beijing, Shanghai, Ningbo and Nanjing will be cut by between 10 percent and 15 percent, while a cut of between 5 percent and 15 percent will be implemented on its global routes, the company said. TransAsia Airways also announced yesterday it would reduce prices by up to 20 percent on two routes between Taiwan and China from Sept. 1 to Dec. 31 this year.
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