More than 70 percent of respondents are confident they would be able to resume international travel within a year, travel booking platform Booking.com’s “Asia-Pacific Region Travel Confidence Report” said on Wednesday.
People around the world have significantly different views regarding international travel, with Taiwanese expressing a high percentage of willingness to travel abroad, the report said.
Most of the respondents cited a need to “take a trip” after having been cooped up for two years due to COVID-19 restrictions, it said.
Asked what they were most worried about regarding international travel, respondents from Singapore, China and Hong Kong said they feared being “trapped” at a destination due to new border controls resulting from a COVID-19 outbreak.
However, Taiwanese respondents were more worried about being infected with SARS-CoV-2 while traveling, the report said.
Fifty-eight percent listed catching the disease as their greatest concern, while 37 percent said they were concerned about being trapped at a destination, it said.
Thirty-five percent said they were worried about quarantine measures upon returning to Taiwan, the report said.
This highlights that Taiwanese are mostly concerned about their health and how quarantine policies would affect their plans, it said.
Indian repondents were the most optimistic of those interviewed, with 86 percent expressing confidence that they would travel internationally within a year.
Respondents from India, Vietnam and China were the most willing to endure inconveniences while traveling, but those from the same three countries, as well as Japan, were also the most pessimistic about their respective countries relaxing border controls, with 37 percent saying that there were “uncomfortable” with the situation in their respective home nations.
Among Taiwanese respondents, the proportion who expressed doubt that Taiwan was ready to open its borders was 37 percent, while 29 percent said that the nation is ready, the report said.
Respondents from Japan and South Korea were the most opposed to the interruptions to international travel, with 47 percent of Japanese and 32 percent of South Koreans expressing frustration with the situation, the report showed.
Sixty-eight percent of Taiwanese respondents said that they could accept their travel plans being interrupted, while only 9 percent were unwilling to accept such disruptions, it said.
GREATER NUMBER: The sorties might have been a response to the US and the EU expressing concern on Friday over China’s ‘provocations’ in the Taiwan Strait Twenty-five Chinese military aircraft and four naval ships were detected around Taiwan from 6am Saturday to 6am yesterday, including eight airplanes that had crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and another two that entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ). The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft that entered Taiwan’s southwestern ADIZ were a Y-8 anti-submarine plane and a BZK-005 uncrewed aerial vehicle, the Ministry of National Defense said. The aircraft that flew across the median line include two Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets, four J-16 multipurpose fighters and two J-10 jets, the ministry’s official Web site showed. Taiwan’s armed forces monitored the
Mask easing: Teachers are allowed to take their masks off while lecturing indoors, but students should keep theirs on, as COVID-19 measures ease this week The Ministry of Education (MOE) yesterday released new on-campus COVID-19 prevention guidelines, stating that masks can be taken off while exercising, singing, dancing, performing, taking photographs, dining, drinking, video and voice recording, hosting events, presenting speeches and lecturing outdoors. Large outdoor events organized by schools should comply with the mask regulations issued by the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), it added. The new guidelines came into effect yesterday, and people in Taiwan are no longer required to wear masks outdoors for the first time since May 19 last year. The CECC announced the easing of the mask mandate on Monday, adding that it
LUNAR NEW YEAR PEAK: Taiwanese who are in China should get vaccinated and consider returning early, as infection rates are expected to increase, the CECC said China faces five major problems once COVID-19 begins spreading there, with a peak in infections likely during the Lunar New Year holidays, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝), who heads the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), said yesterday. Wang wrote on Facebook that according to the center’s data, the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in China is worth noting, as the new Omicron subvariants BF.7 and BA.5.2 spreading in China are highly infectious and are more transmissible than the previously dominating Omicron subvariants. “The virus cannot be eliminated even under China’s strict control measures,” he wrote. “Its policy
‘SEXUAL ASSAULT’: Taipei prosecutors said that cooperation agreements between Taiwan and the Czech Republic grant Czech officials protection against prosecution The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday reaffirmed that it would not charge a Czech official with sexual assault because he is protected by diplomatic immunity. The office released a statement saying it has verified that the man works for the Czech Economic and Cultural Office Taipei’s foreign affairs corps and is thereby protected from criminal prosecution. A foreign graduate student in Taiwan had filed a complaint alleging that the section head of the Czech Economic and Trade Section had sexually assaulted her on April 21 last year. The woman said the Czech official had invited her to his home and then forced her
RSS