The Tourism Administration yesterday confirmed that tour operators from China’s Fujian Province had postponed their visits to Lienchiang County (Matsu) due to a scheduling conflict, but would not need to reapply for entry permits if they choose to enter the nation at a later date.
Tour operators from Fuzhou City were scheduled to arrive in Matsu on Monday to scout for potential travel routes, after the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism on April 28 announced that residents of Fujian Province would be allowed to travel to the outlying island.
Residents could travel to Taiwan proper once the ferry service between the province’s Pingtan City and Taiwan is resumed, it said.
Photo: Tsai Ssu-pei, Taipei Times
The local tourism industry has viewed the trip as the beginning of normal cross-strait tourism exchanges, but the Fuzhou City Travel Association wrote a letter to the Matsu Tourism Association saying that it had to postpone the trip, as the city had important celebratory events during the Dragon Boat Festival long weekend.
“Our position of welcoming Chinese tourists remains unchanged. They need not reapply for entry permits if they come at a later date,” Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Trust Lin (林信任) told reporters on the sidelines of a news conference promoting tours to Matsu.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Li Meng-yen (李孟諺) said on a separate occasion that he hoped the tour operators would still visit Matsu despite the trip being unavoidably postponed.
“We hope that cross-strait travel would resume in a gradual and equitable manner,” Li told reporters before attending a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee in Taipei. “Taiwan has allowed individuals to travel to China, and tours to China that were arranged before the group tour ban was reintroduced are permitted to go, too. Compared with China, we are open to cross-strait tourism.”
As of Monday, about 3.45 million international tourists had visited Taiwan so far this year, Li said, citing data from the National Immigration Agency.
“We still aim to attract 10 million international visitors this year, and are focusing marketing campaigns on Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia and North America in the second half of this year,” he said.
The government is to open tourism offices in Vancouver and Manila this year, he said.
To comply with the New Southbound Policy, Li said that the ministry would ask that the visa-waiver program for Filipino and Thai visitors be continued, and tourism campaigns be intensified among Muslim tourists and the rising middle class in Southeast Asia.
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