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.
EVA Airways was ranked the eighth-best airline in the world for this year, the only Taiwanese carrier to make it into the top 25 Airline Excellence Awards this year, aviation reviews Web site AirlineRatings.com said on Wednesday. AirlineRatings.com has a seven-star rating system to evaluate more than 360 airlines around the world every year, EVA Airways said in a statement on Thursday. “We are delighted that efforts by the entire EVA staff have been recognized by Airline Ratings,” EVA Airways president Clay Sun (孫嘉明) said in the release. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the company identified and adopted services and procedures that enhance and
A promotional event for the launch of a drinks store led to police questioning a 26-year-old woman surnamed Chang (張), the Taichung Police Department said yesterday. Police said that they questioned Chang and forwarded the case to prosecutors, accusing her of producing, distributing, broadcasting or selling pornography. Police said she faces charges related to the alleged distribution of indecent photographs on Twitter and using overtly sexual innuendos to promote the store on Monday night. Officers stumbled upon the content during a routine Internet “patrol.” Chang faces a prison sentence of up to two years and up to a NT$90,000 fine if found guilty
Exiled Chinese democracy advocate Wang Dan (王丹) yesterday denied an accusation by former Taiwanese political worker Lee Yuan-chun (李援軍) that Wang had sexually harassed him in a hotel room in New York nine years ago. There was a huge gap between Lee’s accusation and his own understanding and memory, Wang wrote on Facebook, adding it was hard for him to respond further regarding a “unilateral description” made by someone else. Wang made the remarks after his initial response on Facebook was met with criticism, with people saying he did not directly address the allegation. Lee on Friday wrote on Facebook that he
MORE WARNINGS: If the US company does not clarify and solve issues with its frozen berries, the FDA might extend an import suspension implemented last month, it said The Kaohsiung Department of Health yesterday said it fined Costco NT$4.5 million (US$146,265) over contaminated frozen strawberries, while the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said that although the US company had filed an improvement plan, an import suspension on frozen berries could remain. Three types of frozen berry products imported and sold by Costco have tested positive for the hepatitis A virus since April. The Kaohsiung health department previously fined Costco NT$300,000 for not providing the sales list of a contaminated batch of Kirkland Signature Three Berry Blend imported from Chile, in contravention of the Communicable Disease Control Act (傳染病防治法). It later
RSS