Public adherence to social distancing measures would be key to determining whether people would still be free to travel domestically, Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday.
Yesterday was the first workday after people returned from the four-day Children’s Day and Tomb Sweeping Day holiday.
Media reports showed that tourists in some popular travel destinations, such as Kenting (墾丁), failed to observe the Central Epidemic Command Center’s social distancing recommendations, which advised people to keep a distance of at least 1m when they are outdoors.
Photo: CNA
As the International Workers’ Day long weekend from May 1 to 3 is coming in three weeks, some have suggested that the government cancel the holiday to prevent crowds during the pandemic, or the nation’s efforts to effectively contain the spread of COVID-19 in the past two months would be wasted.
Asked if canceling the Workers’ Day weekend would be another heavy blow to domestic tourism, Lin said that preventing the spread of the disease remained the government’s top priority.
The ministry had ensured that travelers comply with the government’s disease-prevention policy during the past holiday, including wearing masks and having their temperature taken.
“Visitors to the 13 national scenic areas and 25 amusement parks supervised by the Tourism Bureau were down 50 percent compared with the same period last year. If you look at the usage rate of the parking space in amusement parks, except for the 30 to 40 percent at Lipao Resort and 20 to 30 percent at Janfusun Fancyworld the rest had a usage rate of less than 10 percent,” he said.
People can enjoy their holiday outdoors and feel just as relaxed when they adhere to disease-prevention policies, including observing social distancing, wearing masks, visiting less-crowded areas and avoiding peak travel time, Lin said.
The next two weeks would be a critical period to gauge whether people had strictly followed official disease-prevention measures during the holiday, he said.
“If the answer is yes, then we might still be free to travel domestically during long weekends. If people failed to restrain themselves and subsequently caused the virus to spread further, we could all be grounded,” Lin added.
Capping the number of people visiting a scenic area or entering a hotel is worth considering, he said, adding that hotels or travel service operators could follow this rule to avoid cluster infections in their facilities.
Most of the hoteliers across the nation had a pretty low occupancy rate during the holiday, except those in Kenting, Hualien, Taitung and Taichung’s Cingjing Farm (清境農場), he said.
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