A Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City councilor yesterday slammed the Taipei City Government for offering an “embarrassing” travel package to Japanese tourists that includes stops at the Taipei Martyrs Shrine and the suspended Maokong Gondola.
The “Good Fortune” travel package designed by the city’s Department of Information and Tourism and EVA Airways offers a free tour guide and prizes to Japanese tourists visiting Taipei between June 15 and September.
The guide suggests six routes, which include stops at Taipei Confucius Temple, Xingtian Temple, Shilin Night Market, Taipei 101, the Martyrs Shrine, Maokong Gondola and Beitou Park.
PHOTO: CHANG CHIA-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
“Isn’t it ridiculous to take Japanese to Martyrs Shrine to pay their respects to heroes who sacrificed themselves against the Japanese?” DPP Taipei City Councilor Chuang Ruei-hsiung (莊瑞雄) said.
The Maokong Gondola has been suspended for several months, while Beitou Park has been under construction for three years, Chuang said, condemning the city officials for negligence.
“The travel package planners were obviously planning the routes in their heads. They don’t know the Maokong Gondola is suspended and they don’t know the situation at Beitou Park,” Chuang said.
The promotional package cost the city government NT$10 million (US$300,000), Chuang said.
However, Huang Ru-miao (黃如妙), a division chief at the department, said the department had sent the package to Japanese travel agencies for review and they had agreed to the routes. Many Japanese want to visit Martyrs Shrine to “reflect upon part of Japanese history,” she said.
The department included the cable car in the routes because of the scenery and tea culture in the Maokong area, she said.
Meanwhile, the spread of the swine flu in Japan is taking its toll on Taiwan’s travel industry.
EVA Air president Jeng Kuang-yeun (鄭光遠) said yesterday the airline would suspend its regular flights from Taipei to Los Angeles via Osaka, starting Tuesday.
“Our flights to Japan suffered a great deal because of the swine flu,” Jeng said. “Now that the spread of the flu appears to have slowed down, we hope the situation would encourage people to start traveling again and that passengers will gradually return over the summer.”
Tourism Bureau statistics show that approximately 79,000 Japanese visited Taiwan in April, down 3 percent from April last year.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SHELLEY SHAN
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS