The Ministry of Health and Welfare should integrate various systems that have been used to monitor foot traffic at tourist attractions to ensure that locally transmitted cases of COVID-19 do not increase after a nationwide COVID-19 alert was downgraded to level 2 on Tuesday, tourism experts said yesterday.
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Legislator Andy Chiu (邱臣遠) said at a news conference that the ministry spent NT$15 million (US$535,619) last year leasing a system from Chunghwa Telecom to monitor foot traffic at tourist destinations, adding that travelers could access the system via the “Freeway 1968” app, which was previously only used to monitor freeway traffic.
While such a function should have been available from April last year to April this year, it was removed from the app in June last year and not used for 10 months, he said.
Government officials in Taipei, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan, New Taipei City and Yunlin County have developed their own apps to monitor the numbers at tourist attractions, but both the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Transportation and Communications have been unwilling to consolidate the different apps into one platform.
Travel Quality Assurance Association chairman Ringo Lee (李奇嶽) said that as tourist attractions are regulated by different government agencies, the Central Epidemic Command Center should lead interagency efforts to consolidate the nation’s monitoring systems.
“We will see a rise in locally transmitted cases again if we fail to effectively regulate the number of people entering tourist attractions,” Lee said.
Chen Tai-an (陳泰安), an associate professor in the department of sustainable tourism at TransWorld University, said the government should use technology to monitor foot traffic and prevent further outbreaks.
Staff at Kaohsiung’s Hsingda Harbor and Chiayi County’s Budai Fish Mart still calculate foot traffic using people counters, which is an outdated system, Chen said.
“Since the government has already built such a system, it should work to improve it and make it better,” he said.
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