The nation is to keep the daily entry quota for Chinese tour groups unchanged, at 5,000 people per day, to address what has been described as deteriorating tour quality caused by low-priced Chinese tour groups, Minister of Transportation and Communications Yeh Kuang-shih (葉匡時) said yesterday.
Yeh also said that the government would raise the quota for free independent travelers from China.
The organization of low-priced tour groups was a common practice in China, in which the tourists are asked to pay only a small amount or nothing at all, tourism officials said. In return, travel agents take the tour groups to multiple shopping destinations and earn commissions from shop owners.
While China banned the practice under a new tourism law in October last year, the disputes caused by low-priced Chinese tour groups have not ceased.
Last month, media outlets reported that a Chinese woman was allegedly beaten up by a Taiwanese tour bus driver for refusing to buy anything at the stores chosen by the travel agents, which would have affected the commission the driver would receive.
The incident prompted the Tourism Bureau to restrict the number of shopping stops for Chinese tour groups.
Yeh said that the bureau has stipulated that the daily expense for Chinese tour groups must not be lower than US$60 per person. However, the low-priced tour groups continued to occur because of what he described as malicious competition among travel agents, he said.
“The existence of low-priced tour groups is a fact,” he said. “We should focus on whether the tourists are forced to shop and whether the stores sell fake items or avoid paying taxes.”
Yeh said that the government does not intend to raise the quota for Chinese tour groups, which would still be limited to 5,000 people per day.
He added that entry permits would first be granted to groups offering quality tours, determined by whether they limit the number of shopping stops and whether tourists stay at hotels positively rated by the bureau.
The government has also planned to raise the number of Chinese FITs entering the nation each day, he said.
However, the bureau said that the daily independent travelers quota could be raised from 4,000 to 5,000 before the end of this year.
Statistics from the bureau showed that the number of Chinese independent tourists has topped 520,000 between January and July this year, which exceeds last year’s total. On average, about 2,700 Chinese independent travelers visit Taiwan each day.
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