The Hakka Affairs Council on Wednesday announced that electronic travel vouchers would be issued to boost tourism and spending at Hakka villages amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The council is to issue 280,000 sets of vouchers, it said in a statement.
People with national identification cards, and people who are married to Taiwanese and also have residency would be eligible for the vouchers, the council said.
Photo: CNA
People can enter a draw for the vouchers by registering through the council’s official account on messaging app Line within the event’s time frame, it said.
There are two types of vouchers — those reserved for families with adults aged 65 or older, and those designed for individuals, it said, adding that 140,000 vouchers would be made available in each category.
From 9am on Wednesday next week until Sunday next week, registration is open to families with adults aged 65 or older, with the winners to be announced on July 20, the council said.
From 9am on July 22 until July 26, others can register in the second draw, with the winners to be announced on July 27, it said.
Winners would be able to use the vouchers from Aug. 1 to Dec. 31 at the nation’s 70 key development areas of Hakka culture, commonly known as Hakka villages, it said.
More than 4,000 designated businesses across 11 cities and counties are part of the voucher program, the council said.
Others businesses in the food, accommodation and cultural industries at one of the 70 Hakka villages that are registered for tax purposes can apply to join the program, it said.
Draw winners would receive vouchers with a face value of NT$100 each, the council said, adding that one voucher may be used for every NT$100 spent.
The vouchers would be redeemable via QR code, it said, adding that they would not be valid in the township where the holder has their household registration.
The council said that it hopes the program encourages families to explore Hakka villages, and their rich and diverse cultural heritage, as well as driving consumption and stimulating the tourism industry.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the