The Tourism Bureau is renting hotel rooms for the short term to increase the supply of rooms available to people who need to undergo quarantine after returning from overseas for the Lunar New Year holiday.
The availability of quarantine hotel rooms has come under scrutiny as Taiwanese returning home for the biggest holiday of the year have had trouble booking a room at a quarantine hotel.
Demand is expected to be strained further when the Ministry of Health and Welfare enforces a “one person, one room” quarantine policy on Friday.
Photo courtesy of a quarantine hotel
The nation currently has about 16,000 hotel quarantine rooms, Tourism Bureau Director-General Chang Hsi-chung (張錫聰) told reporters yesterday.
To qualify to be a quarantine hotel, hoteliers should follow the guidelines stipulated by local health departments to secure their approval.
As the demand for quarantine hotel rooms is expected to rise ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, the Tourism Bureau convened an emergency meeting with hoteliers nationwide to discuss the issue, Chang said.
The bureau decided to lease hotel rooms from operators, he said, adding that it is capping room rates instead of providing an NT$800 subsidy.
The bureau is renting about 1,400 hotel rooms, which would be available for use from tomorrow until Feb. 11, Chang said.
The scheme is not applicable in Yilan, Hualien, Taitung, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu counties, he said.
The bureau’s scheme would help add about 4,600 quarantine hotel rooms by the end of this month, he added.
Prices of hotel rooms rented by the bureau are capped at NT$5,000 per day for hotels in Taipei and New Taipei City, the bureau said.
Rooms in other counties are capped at NT$3,000 per day, it said.
Hoteliers would still get paid even if the room is not used, it added.
Meanwhile, some large international hotels are offering discounts to families who decide to stay at the hotel so that a family member can quarantine at home.
That could provide an additional 6,950 hotel rooms, the bureau said.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
Many Chinese spouses required to submit proof of having renounced their Chinese household registration have either completed the process or provided affidavits ahead of the June 30 deadline, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. Of the 12,146 people required to submit the proof, 5,534 had done so as of Wednesday, MAC deputy head and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said. Another 2,572 people who met conditions for exemption or deferral from submitting proof of deregistration — such as those with serious illnesses or injuries — have submitted affidavits instead, he said. “As long as individuals are willing to cooperate with the legal
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do
The Ministry of Environment yesterday held a seminar in Taipei for experts from Taiwan and Japan to exchange their experiences on the designs and development of public toilets. Japan Toilet Association chairman Kohei Yamamoto said that he was impressed with the eco-toilet set up at Daan Forest Park, adding that Japan still faces issues regarding public restrooms despite the progress it made over the past decades. For example, an all-gender toilet was set up in Kabukicho in Tokyo’s Shinjuku District several years ago, but it caused a public backlash and was rebuilt into traditional men’s and women’s toilets, he said. Japan Toilet Association
RSS