The government has distributed more than NT$3.8 billion (US$135.36 million) in relief funds to travel agencies and hotel operators since the Central Epidemic Command Center in the middle of May raised the nationwide COVID-19 alert to level 3, the Tourism Bureau said yesterday.
The government introduced a relief fund for the tourism industry following a meeting with representatives of business associations on May 14, the bureau said.
Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) instructed government agencies to quickly distribute funds to businesses affected by the tightened disease prevention measures, it added.
As of Monday, 2,253 travel agencies had applied for emergency funds to cover salaries and business losses, the bureau said.
It said that NT$680 million, or 95 percent of the funds earmarked for travel agencies, had been distributed to 2,150 firms nationwide.
It said that NT$3.19 billion had been distributed to more than 10,000 hoteliers and bed-and-breakfast operators.
The deadline for relief fund applications is Friday next week, it said.
In addition to providing relief funding, the bureau revised financing rules for firms in the industry, including raising the credit line for hoteliers, travel agencies and amusement park operators to NT$50 million.
The credit line for small-scale loans was also raised to NT$30 million, it said.
Bed-and-breakfast operators would be eligible for up to NT$20 million in funding loans and up to NT$10 million in small-scale loans, in addition to a one-year subsidy on interest incurred from working fund loans, the bureau said.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs offers a maximum credit line of NT$500 million for firms in the tourism industry that are not categorized as small or medium-sized businesses, the bureau said, adding that they can also apply for reduced electricity fees and deferred payments.
The ministry also has relief programs for restaurateurs and factories offering guided tours to visitors, the bureau said.
While 66 travel agencies have ceased operations during the COVID-19 pandemic, 177 new firms have entered the market since last year, bureau data showed.
“This shows that some business operators are eyeing opportunities after the pandemic,” the bureau said.
The bureau has requested that travel industry workers be prioritized for vaccination to prepare the industry for increased business after the level 3 alert is eased, it said.
A survey published by Airbnb yesterday showed that more than 60 percent of people said their motivation for getting vaccinated is to be able to travel again.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not