The Taipei City Government yesterday announced that six sightseeing spots in the city have earned the Muslim Friendly Environment Certificate.
The Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said its survey on foreign visitors’ consumption behaviors and tendencies while visiting Taipei showed that the most popular sightseeing spots among Muslim visitors are the Ximending (西門町) shopping area, Taipei 101 in Xinyi District (信義) and the historic Dadaocheng (大稻埕) area in Datong District (大同).
Many Muslim visitors recognized Taipei’s environmental hygiene, cross-language communication and friendliness, but some visitors said that they hoped there would be more prayer rooms and Muslim-friendly sights or hotels in the city, the department added.
Photo: Tsai Ssu-pei, Taipei Times
After holding two discussion sessions in July that provided guidance to hotels or sightseeing spots interested in improving their facilities, 28 hotels and six tourist sites received the Muslim Friendly Environment Certificate yesterday.
The six spots are the National Palace Museum, National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Taipei 101, Taipei Children’s Amusement Park, Zhishan Cultural and Ecological Garden (芝山文化生態綠園) and the Discovery Center of Taipei (台北探索館).
Taipei 101’s tourism office director Huang Chiung-hsuan (黃瓊萱) said that the building has installed washlet facilities in the restrooms on the third floor of its shopping center and prayer rooms on the fifth floor, and that it plans to install washlet facilities on the 89th floor observation deck by the end of the year.
Taipei Deputy Mayor Tsai Ping-kun (蔡炳坤) said Taiwan ranked third in non-Organisation of Islamic Cooperation countries, along with Japan and the UK, in MasterCard’s 2019 Global Muslim Travel Index for the first time this year.
“Freedom, diversity and openness” are the main features that make Taipei attractive to visitors, Tsai said, adding that the city will continue to provide refined and respectful services.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday condemned Chinese and Russian authorities for escalating regional tensions, citing Chinese warplanes crossing the Taiwan Strait’s median line and joint China-Russia military activities breaching South Korea’s air defense identification zone (KADIZ) over the past two days. A total of 30 Chinese warplanes crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait on Thursday and Friday, entering Taiwan’s northern and southwestern airspace in coordination with 15 naval vessels and three high-altitude balloons, the MAC said in a statement. The Chinese military also carried out another “joint combat readiness patrol” targeting Taiwan on Thursday evening, the MAC said. On
Singapore is to allow imports of Taiwanese raw pork for the first time in 15 years, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday. The Singapore Food Agency has approved imports of fresh pork produced by New Taipei City-based Cha I Shan Foods, which had obtained a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) certification from the ministry to export to Singapore, it said. The ministry said it had hoped Singapore would permit Taiwanese fresh pork imports in addition to processed pork products. Singapore agreed to accept Taiwanese fresh pork after completing a document review and a virtual tour of Cha I Shan Foods’ packing
‘FACT-BASED’: There is no ban, and 2 million Taiwanese have traveled to China this year, which is more than the 285,000 Chinese who visited Taiwan, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday accused China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) of shifting the blame for Beijing’s tourism ban on Taiwan, continuing a war of words that started in the past week. The council’s remark came hours after its Chinese counterpart on Friday accused the government of creating barriers to the resumption of reciprocal group tours across the Taiwan Strait. The TAO accused the MAC of releasing untruthful information and dragging its feet on the tourism sector’s call to establishing ferries linking Pingtung County to China’s Pingtan Island. The MAC failed to respond to overtures to restore direct flights and raised the
Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) yesterday said the city “does not tolerate violence” after the Taipei City Council reported death threats over a planned screening today of a documentary on alleged forced organ harvesting in China. The council’s report follows a flurry of similar threats targeting theaters and institutions screening the documentary, titled State Organs, which accuses Chinese officials of harvesting organs from incarcerated dissidents and Falun Gong members. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) city councilors who planned to screen the film told a news conference earlier yesterday that the organizers of the screening had received a threat of a knife attack signed
RSS