Tourism industry calls for more Chinese visitors

This article was written by Evelyn Chiang and published by the Macroview Weekly on August 3, 2005.

The Taiwan tourist industry recently called on the government to speed up the process for allowing more Chinese visitors into the country.

A survey was conducted recently to find out the attitudes of Taiwan's citizens towards the proposal of opening up to Chinese visitors. In the survey, 84 percent of the respondents said that they hoped the government would lift the ban within a year. Another 29 percent said it should be done immediately.

In the survey, over 50 percent of the respondents thought that visits by Chinese tourists would create a strong boost of 40 percent and over to Taiwan's tourism. However, 70 percent of the respondents pointed out that there is a need for better tourist attractions in the long term, while over 40 percent of the respondents suggested that more tourist information and better tour guides are needed.

Currently, a quota set by the Mainland Affairs Council allows 1000 Chinese visitors per day.

In response to the call from the tourism industry, the government's Tourism Bureau said that many issues need to be considered before any decision is made to allow more Chinese visitors. These issues include guarantee deposits by both parties, direct charter flights, overstaying issues, travel agency operation, and the question of whether to exclude visits by Chinese police and military workers, just to name a few.