A group of 25 Japanese tour operators is to arrive in Taiwan on Sunday next week for a four-day tour, as Taiwan prepares to reopen its borders amid signs that the COVID-19 pandemic is easing, Ministry of Transportation and Communications sources said yesterday.
It would be the first group of foreign nationals to enter Taiwan for tourism-related purposes since foreign tourist arrivals were banned on March 19, 2020.
The tour operators are to visit the Taipei 101 skyscraper, New Taipei City’s Jiufen (九份), Keelung’s Heping Island Park (和平島公園) and other sites in the city, including the former site of a kimono store run by the great-grandfather of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the sources said.
Photo courtesy of the New Taipei City Government via CNA
The tour operators would also ride a sightseeing restaurant bus in Taipei, which would stop at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall where the Taiwan Lantern Festival is to be held next year, the sources said, adding that they would also meet with local tour operators and Tourism Bureau officials.
They would be exempt from the COVID-19 prevention policy of three days of isolation followed by four days of self-disease prevention, the sources said.
However, measures would be in place to prevent them from coming into contact with local residents, the sources said.
Plans to invite tour operators from other countries for similar tours are under way as part of the government’s preparations to reopen Taiwan to international tourists, the sources said.
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