The Taipei Department of Information and Tourism yesterday said that it is planning a short-term travel subsidy program to boost tourism in the city, which is expected to be run from late next month to the end of the Taipei Lantern Festival in March.
The plan was revealed at a question-and-answer session at the Taipei City Council after Democratic Progressive Party Taipei City Councilor Chiang Chih-ming (江志銘) asked Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) whether he would attend a labor demonstration, as local media had reported that he would.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Oct. 28 announced that it would attend the Autumn Struggle (秋鬥) — an annual protest march by labor groups — to promote its calls rejecting the government’s plan to allow imports of US pork containing ractopamine.
The Taiwan People’s Party, of which Ko is the chairman, on Wednesday also announced that it would attend the rally.
Ko said he has not made plans to attend the rally.
Chiang said that Ko, as mayor, would help the city’s workers more by boosting Taipei’s industrial development, and securing their jobs and paychecks, than by attending the rally.
The Ambassador Hotel Taipei (台北國賓飯店) has applied for permission to renovate its unsafe and old building, and is considering whether to continue operating the hotel, he said, adding that many workers would lose their jobs if the hotel closed.
As the COVID-19 pandemic has led to tightened border controls, Ko should think about how to boost the city’s tourism industry, Chiang added.
As more than 610,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases were reported globally on Sunday, Taiwan’s border control measures must be tighter, Ko said.
Because the pandemic has seriously affected the hotels that mainly relied on international visitors, they must try to transform, such as by trying to attract domestic visitors or using their facilities for other purposes, he added.
Department Commissioner Liu Yi-ting (劉奕霆) said the department has planned travel subsidy programs for tour groups and independent travelers, and if the plans are approved, it would officially announce them next month.
Taipei Deputy Mayor Tsai Ping-kun (蔡炳坤) said the city government has also planned six major events between Christmas and the lantern festival in a bid to connect the shopping areas in the city and boost tourism.
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
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
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,