The government is to revisit the “Kuan Hung Pilot Project” after 152 of 153 Vietnamese visitors in tour groups went missing last week, the largest group of runaway tourists since the project began in 2015, the Tourism Bureau said yesterday.
The project to issue electronic visas is designed to increase the number of quality tour groups visiting from India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos — nations targeted by the New Southbound Policy.
The tourists were able to travel to Taiwan because of the project, bureau Director-General Chou Yung-hui (周永暉) said, adding that the agency would strengthen visa reviews.
Photo copied by Huang Liang-chieh, Taipei Times
It would also work with the National Immigration Agency (NIA) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ (MOFA) Bureau of Consular Affairs to randomly select applications for additional inspection, Chou added.
Asked if the government would consider revising the project, Chou said that the Tourism Bureau has been notified that it should soon attend a meeting of the Executive Yuan’s Tourism Development and Promotion Committee to discuss problems facing the project.
“What happened last week was an isolated case. There are still quality tour groups and we should not view the project with so much negativity,” the Tourism Bureau said. “The NIA still needs to investigate details involving this incident and we will propose complementary measures accordingly to handle similar situations.”
The tour groups were formed by Vietnamese travel agency International Holidays Trading Travel, then were taken over by ETHoliday (東森國際旅行社) upon arrival.
After the incident, the Bureau of Consular Affairs canceled the visas granted to 182 tourists who had booked trips with International Holidays Trading Travel, but have not yet entered the country, the Tourism Bureau said, adding that it has also stopped reviewing visa applications filed by the agency.
Travel agents said that the incident is an example of how human traffickers are able to exploit loopholes in the project.
ETHoliday last week handled five tour groups from Vietnam, Taiwan International Tourist Aid Rescue Association chairman Roget Hsu (許高慶) said.
The first group of 23 people arrived in Kaohsiung on Friday for a five-day tour, while the four other groups with a total of 130 tourists entered through Tainan Airport on Sunday for a four-day tour, he said, adding that all five groups spent the night at two hotels in Kaohsiung.
Human traffickers reportedly arranged cars to pick the visitors up at the airports, Hsu said.
The first group’s Taiwanese tour guide resisted and called the police, who said they could not make any arrests, as the tourists had valid tourist visas, he said.
Seven visitors in the first group had left by Monday morning, while the remaining 16 went missing by Tuesday morning, he said.
Of the 130 tourists who arrived on Sunday, 128 went missing by Monday morning, while one other had left by Tuesday, Hsu said.
Tourists from the countries included in the program are not required to present a financial statement when applying for a visa, so Vietnamese travel agencies should help by running preliminary checks, he said, adding that it is unreasonable that Taiwanese travel agencies should have to pay for the deportation cost of every runaway tourist.
The one remaining visitor was the only real tourist, meaning that even the tour guides were disingenuous, the Tourism Bureau said.
All of the visitors had purchased round-trip tickets, it added.
The NIA has obtained the list of tourists from ETHoliday and are searching for the missing people.
MOFA said it has revoked the visas of the missing travelers and has asked the NIA to locate and deport them.
It also urged the Executive Yuan to call a meeting to discuss ways to tighten visa application reviews.
Since 2015, 414 tourists arriving through the project have been reported missing, 409 of whom were Vietnamese, while five were Cambodian, Tourism Bureau data showed.
Additional reporting by Lu Yi-hsuan
DEATH THREAT: A MAC official said that it has urged Beijing to avoid creating barriers that would impede exchanges across the Strait, but it continues to do so People should avoid unnecessary travel to China after Beijing issued 22 guidelines allowing its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death “Taiwan independence separatists,” the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday as it raised its travel alert for China, including Hong Kong and Macau, to “orange.” The guidelines published last week “severely threaten the personal safety of Taiwanese traveling to China, Hong Kong and Macau,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a news conference in Taipei. “Following a comprehensive assessment, the government considers it necessary to elevate the travel alert to orange from yellow,” Liang said. Beijing has
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday said that the Chinese Communist Party was planning and implementing “major” reforms, ahead of a political conclave that is expected to put economic recovery high on the agenda. Chinese policymakers have struggled to reignite growth since late 2022, when restrictions put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic were lifted. The world’s second-largest economy is beset by a debt crisis in the property sector, persistently low consumption and high unemployment among young people. Policymakers “are planning and implementing major measures to further deepen reform in a comprehensive manner,” Xi said in a speech at the Great Hall
CIVIL DEFENSE: More reservists in alternative service would help establish a sound civil defense system for use in wartime and during natural disasters, Kuma Academy’s CEO said While a total of 120,000 reservists are expected to be called up for alternative reserve drills this year, compared with the 6,505 drilled last year, the number has been revised to 58,000 due to a postponed training date, Deputy Minster of the Interior Ma Shih-yuan (馬士元) said. In principle, the ministry still aims to call up 120,000 reservists for alternative reserve drills next year, he said, but the actual number would not be decided later until after this year’s evaluation. The increase follows a Legislative Yuan request that the Ministry of the Interior address low recruitment rates, which it made while reviewing
SOLUTIONS NEEDED: Taiwan must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers due to population decline, the minister of economic affairs said in Washington President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration is considering a plan to import labor to deal with an impending shortage of engineers and other highly skilled workers, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said in Washington on Tuesday. Kuo was leading a delegation attending the SelectUSA Investment Summit. Taiwan must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers for high-end manufacturing jobs by 2040, he said. Ministry of Economic Affairs officials are still calculating the precise number of workers that are needed, as it works on loosening immigration restrictions and creating incentives, Kuo said. Taiwanese firms operating factories in the US and other countries would