After crash, nation's travel industry faces questions

This article was published by the Taiwan Headlines on October 10, 2006. It reports that soon after the recent bus crash that killed five Chinese tourists and injured another 15, the Tourism Bureau in Taiwan issued a statement that presented various measures to ensure greater travel service quality.

However, according to the Travel Agent Association of Taiwan, the tragic accident somehow relieved the problems facing Taiwan's tourism industry, as the nation prepares to increase access for Chinese tourists.

Indeed, the accident was a result of the cut-throat competition among travel agencies that causes them to lower their prices and to compromise on the quality of the services provided to tourists. In order to counter this problem, the Tourism Bureau recently announced that the daily amount each tourist could be charged could not be set at below US$80.

The government in Taiwan has also amended regulations that allow Chinese tourists to visit Taiwan without being required to transit through a third country. The aforementioned Travel Agent Association of Taiwan is authorized to draft disciplinary rules for all travel service providers to follow. The association is also charged with the responsibility of monitoring travel service quality, setting reasonable rates for package tours, setting travel-related disputes, and ensuring that tourists do not pass through Taiwan under fake identities.

Specifically, travel agencies that fail to agree to the disciplinary rules set by the Travel Agent Association of Taiwan will not be allowed to offer services to tourists. Moreover, any infraction of the rules by an agency could result in the imposition of a suspension of its services for one to six months.

However, since Taiwan and China have yet to agree on the specific terms of the amendment, the government in Taiwan cannot enforce its regulations. Indeed, the Travel Agent Association of Taiwan has no legal authority to penalize disobedient travel agencies now. It could only give them verbal warnings.

Meanwhile, according to the Travel Quality Assurance Association, Taiwan lacks hotels with mid-priced rooms to accommodate the tastes of Chinese tourists. Currently, the intense competition among the operators in the industry has forced many travel agencies to lower their prices and to look for additional revenues from other sources, such as kickbacks from shop or restaurant owners.

According to the association, Taiwan has not established an effective certification system to provide tourists with information about the travel service qualities of operators. Some Chinese tourists have complained to the association that the food they ate in restaurants in Taiwan was awful and that they were often fooled into buying fake jewelery and second-rate tea.

As a matter of fact, the Tourism Bureau has recently been criticized for its ability to settle travel-related disputes and to rapidly respond to emergency travel situations. In recent months, the bureau was criticized for doing almost nothing when a hotel in Taiwan did not strictly observe the requirements stipulated in its build-operate-transfer contract when it established room prices.

In September 2006, when two Taiwanese tourists died in a traffic accident in China, the bureau's head was not even briefed about the accident until 8 hours later. This is despite the fact that the Straits Exchange Foundation already issued an official statement several hours earlier.

According to the Tourism Bureau, a total of 54,000 Chinese tourists visited Taiwan in 2005. However, from January to August 2006, the number of Chinese tourists reached 72,000.

At present, the government in Taiwan only allows two types of Chinese tourists to visit - those who are in Taiwan on business or other professional purposes, and those who travel to Taiwan via a third country. The Mainland Affairs council is currently negotiating with the Chinese government about the possibility of allowing Chinese tourists to enter Taiwan directly. The council claimed recently that the negotiations should be concluded by the end of 2006.