With the nation’s borders remaining virtually closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and amid an increasing number of local travelers, passenger traffic at Penghu Airport in the outlying Penghu County hit 16,686 on Sunday, a 40 percent spike from a year earlier, airport statistics showed.
It was also the highest number of passengers served in a single day since the airport opened 43 years ago, the data showed.
Local environmental groups have said that the surge in tourists has exceeded the island’s estimated environmental carrying capacity of 15,000 people.
Photo: Liu Yu-ching, Taipei Times
Prior to the launch of the second phase of domestic “disease prevention tours” on July 1, the airport drew up plans to ensure that it operates smoothly amid the expected surge in flights, including separating the foot traffic of arriving and departing passengers, and having three security check lines for departing passengers, it said.
It also asked airlines to increase the number of check-in counters.
A total of 4,009 visitors also accessed the island through Magong Harbor on Sunday.
Photo: Liu Yu-ching, Taipei Times
However, the surge in visitor numbers has disrupted the lives of local residents, with many places reporting low water pressure and an acute shortage of hotel rooms, rental vehicles and tour buses.
Penghu County Government statistics showed that the island received about 12,000 travelers per day.
With most of the tourists spending at least three days on the island, two of the three days would be an overlapping period, where the island would have to accommodate 24,000 people daily.
That comes close to the maximum number of travelers that the hotels on the island can accommodate, which is 26,000 per day.
The surge in tourists has taken a toll on travel quality, with famous attractions, such as “Moses Parting the Sea,” being swamped by people.
The county government said that tourists are encouraged to book accommodations and arrange transportation in advance, adding that travel agents can help disperse the crowds by arranging of different travel routes.
Independent travelers to the island can also use two travel routes that are accessible through the Tourism Bureau’s Taiwan Shuttle Bus Service (台灣好行).
Hoteliers have also been requested to conserve water and avoid unnecessary water use.
In related news, as of Monday, 3,964 passengers had transferred flights through Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport.
The government began allowing transit passengers on June 25.
Eighty percent of the transit passengers were Southeast Asian travelers headed to the US and Canada, airport statistics showed.
Additional reporting by Shelley Shan
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods