The Tourism Bureau should head interdepartmental efforts to develop mountain tours in Taiwan, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Huang Kuo-shu (黃國書) said in a news conference yesterday.
The bureau spent NT$9 million (US$298,636) producing a short film about Taiwan’s mountains to attract more international tourists, but it does not have any measures in place for people interested in doing mountain tours after they see the film, Huang said.
“International tourists would not know the transport options available to them. Nor would they know how to apply for permits to hike in the mountains or how to arrange their mountain hikes,” Huang said.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
Meanwhile, government agencies are passing the buck on how to regulate for-profit mountain tours, he said, adding that no agency is responsible for the safety of travelers.
Mountains within national parks are regulated by the Ministry of Interior and hiking trails in forests are overseen by the Forestry Bureau under the Council of Agriculture, Huang said.
Licensing for qualified mountain guides is issued by the Sports Administration and the Tourism Bureau is charge of regulating travel agencies and tour guides and protecting tourists’ safety, he added.
The authorities involved in developing mountain tours are scattered, he said.
The government has different applications rules for different routes and even Taiwanese find them confusing, he said.
Most hiking guides in Taiwan do not speak English or other foreign languages, which can expose international tourists to higher risks, Huang added.
Japan provides various promotional materials and easily accessible application procedures for international tourists interested in climbing Mount Fuji or other mountains, Huang said, but the Tourism Bureau’s Web site has only a few links to other Web sites about hiking in Taiwan.
“It is a shame that we have so many mountainous areas, but we do not provide tours for domestic and international travelers,” he said, adding that the Tourism Bureau needs to set up a platform with other agencies and identify mountain routes that could be recommended to tour operators.
Wildman International Travel and Tours Co general manager Yang Chih-ming (楊志明) said that only Yushan (玉山) has an international tourist quota, but Yushan National Park Ecological Protected Area requires people to register three months before their estimated date of arrival.
No such quota system is in place for Hsuehshan (雪山) or Dabajianshan (大霸尖山), which are featured in the bureau’s film, Yang said.
His groups have to compete with Taiwanese hiking groups for limited places at least one month ahead of arrival, he said.
Travel agencies have to arrange for a Taiwanese to stay behind as an emergency contact, he said, adding that this is inconvenient for many foreign travelers.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
TAIWANESE INNOVATION: The ‘Seawool’ fabric generates about NT$200m a year, with the bulk of it sourced by clothing brands operating in Europe and the US Growing up on Taiwan’s west coast where mollusk farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function — a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called “Seawool.” Wang remembered that residents of his seaside hometown of Yunlin County used discarded oyster shells that littered the streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes. “They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls. The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” the 42-year-old said at his factory in Tainan. “So I was
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
RSS