The government should offer greater financial support to the tourism industry, as the industry faces tougher circumstances this year, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said yesterday.
This year’s domestic COVID-19 situation is more serious than last year’s, KMT Culture and Communications Committee director-general Alicia Wang (王育敏) told an online news conference from KMT headquarters in Taipei.
While Taiwanese could travel domestically and engage in so-called “revenge spending” last year, there have been no domestic tours since a major local COVID-19 outbreak was detected in May, she said.
With the repeated extension of a nationwide level 3 COVID-19 alert issued on May 19, operations at travel companies have come to a near halt, Wang said.
“However, the government’s ‘Relief 4.0’ is even worse than last year’s relief package,” she said, referring to the latest expansion of the Executive Yuan’s COVID-19 relief program.
“The government has let travel operators down,” she added.
Last year, travel agencies were eligible for three months of subsidies totaling NT$300,000 to help with operations, Wang said, adding that this is no longer the case.
Under Relief 4.0, businesses in the tourism industry may apply for a one-time subsidy of NT$40,000 per employee over a three-month period to help cover workers’ salaries, she said.
That would be the equivalent of about NT$10,000 per month, Wang said, adding that it was “not enough,” as it might take time for life to return to normal.
The government has also offered subsidies to travel agencies of up to NT$10,000 per tour group, for a maximum of eight groups, to help cover their losses, she said, referring to a scheme in Relief 4.0 to subsidize losses from canceled tours.
However, that amount would not be enough to offset their costs, Wang added.
The tourism sector has been among the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, said KMT Legislator Hung Mong-kai (洪孟楷), who sits on the legislature’s Transportation Committee.
He reiterated calls from the KMT for the government to give a cash handout of NT$10,000 to all Taiwanese, adding that the money would be “life-saving.”
The universal cash handout scheme would help maintain the livelihoods of people who had previously not been included in the government’s COVID-19 relief plans, he said.
He urged the Democratic Progressive Party administration not to “ignore” the policy proposal just because it was crafted by the KMT.
Since the level 3 COVID-19 alert went into effect, travel agencies have been “suffocating,” said Chen Yi-hsuan (陳怡璇), a representative from the Travel Agent Association.
She said she hoped that workers in the travel industry, such as drivers, would be prioritized to receive COVID-19 vaccination, as they would come into contact with the public once restrictions are eased or lifted.
Additional reporting by CNA
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
A pro-Russia hacker group has launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Taiwanese government in retaliation for President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments suggesting that China should have a territorial dispute with Russia, an information security company said today. The hacker group, NoName057, recently launched an HTTPs flood attack called “DDoSia” targeting Taiwanese government and financial units, Radware told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). Local tax bureaus in New Taipei City, Keelung, Hsinchu and Taoyuan were mentioned by the hackers. Only the Hsinchu Local Tax Bureau site appeared to be down earlier in the day, but was back
RSS