Residents of the Hamasen area (哈瑪星) in Kaohsiung yesterday protested at a public hearing with city officials over Chinese tourists to the Sizihwan Scenic Area (西子灣), saying the surge of visitors has disrupted traffic, while business at local stores continues to suffer.
Chinese tourists are like “locusts,” because they arrive in swarms, Hamasen resident Lin King-li (林金利) said, adding that many litter, urinate and defecate on the streets.
He criticized the city government’s tourism policy, which focuses on boosting the number of Chinese visitors, saying that local businesses are not making any more profit from the increased tourism.
Photo: Chang Chung-i, Taipei Times
If the situation continues, Taiwan could become the next Hong Kong, he said.
Tourists do not necessarily bring revenue to a business, National Sun Yat-sen University educator Yu Chien-yuan (余建源) said.
He said the situation in Sizihwan is evidence that Chinese travel agencies that offer bargain packages do not boost tourism income, as the agencies take their clients dining and shopping only at stores they are affiliated with.
As a result, not only are people not receiving the revenues they were promised, the city has to use taxpayers’ money to clean up the mess caused by Chinese tourists, while Chinese businessesprofit.
Members from the Hamasen Vision Alliance and several other self-help groups said that Chinese visitors have degraded residents’ quality of life.
Meanwhile, the Kaohsiung City Government said that it would limit tour buses from 3pm to 7pm, starting on Sunday.
Bus access to the Sizihwan Scenic Area is to be capped at 15 vehicles every 20 minutes, it said.
Residents at the hearing called the move a “band-aid.”
Kaohsiung City Councilor Lee Chiao-ju (李喬如) said that Sizihwan is better without Chinese tourists if all they do is “pee and litter,” while Kaohsiung City Councilor Chien Huan-tsung (簡煥宗) called on the city’s Tourism Bureau to prepare a report on tourist-related problems.
He urged the city government to establish a committee of residents and academics to work out a long-term mitigation plan.
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS