Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it is considering including self-employed tour guides in a second bailout package for tourism industry workers.
The Tourism Bureau is studying the feasibility of the proposal after Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) on Wednesday met with representatives of travel and tour guide associations to discuss how the ministry could help them as their businesses suffer because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ministry said.
Tour guides have also experienced financial losses, as travel agencies have stopped organizing overseas tour groups or hosting tourists from other nations, the bureau said.
Photo: CNA
Apart from subsidizing workers of travel agencies, the bureau said that it is also considering giving self-employed tour guides monthly subsidies of NT$10,000 (US$330) for three consecutive months.
Lin said that the bailout package should help those who are really in need, and self-employed tour guides might have other jobs.
To ensure that the subsidies are used to help those whose main source of income is guiding tours, the bureau is stipulating that the ministry determine how the subsidies should be distributed.
The bureau said that it would not be difficult to ascertain whether someone is a certified, self-employed tour guide and has led tours before, as it can search its database.
What is difficult is verifying whether they have more than one source of income, it said, adding that it would quickly stipulate criteria and make them public.
The ministry said that it hopes to give out subsidies as quickly as possible so that workers in the travel industry can receive the funds by the middle of this month.
The ministry was allocated an additional NT$27.5 billion from the government’s second bailout package, of which NT$12.57 billion would be used to bolster the tourism industry.
The additional funds are to be used to increase subsidies for travel service operators so that they can pay workers’ salaries, the ministry said, adding it would allocate NT$1 billion from the fund to subsidize hotels assisting in the government’s disease-prevention efforts.
Separately yesterday, the ministry said that its policy requiring train, high-speed rail and inner-city bus passengers to wear masks has a legal basis.
The Central Epidemic Command Center has recommended that people using public transport wear masks, because they cannot maintain a distance of 1.5m from others when they are on board, the ministry said, adding that the center has also clarified that people do not have to observe “social distancing” indoors if they all wear masks.
Both the Special Act on COVID-19 Prevention, Relief and Recovery (嚴重特殊傳染性肺炎防治及紓困振興特別條例) and the Communicable Disease Control Act (傳染病防治法) authorize the center, as well as administrative agencies, to enforce measures as they see fit to control the spread of an epidemic, it said.
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