More than 70 percent of respondents are confident they would be able to resume international travel within a year, travel booking platform Booking.com’s “Asia-Pacific Region Travel Confidence Report” said on Wednesday.
People around the world have significantly different views regarding international travel, with Taiwanese expressing a high percentage of willingness to travel abroad, the report said.
Most of the respondents cited a need to “take a trip” after having been cooped up for two years due to COVID-19 restrictions, it said.
Asked what they were most worried about regarding international travel, respondents from Singapore, China and Hong Kong said they feared being “trapped” at a destination due to new border controls resulting from a COVID-19 outbreak.
However, Taiwanese respondents were more worried about being infected with SARS-CoV-2 while traveling, the report said.
Fifty-eight percent listed catching the disease as their greatest concern, while 37 percent said they were concerned about being trapped at a destination, it said.
Thirty-five percent said they were worried about quarantine measures upon returning to Taiwan, the report said.
This highlights that Taiwanese are mostly concerned about their health and how quarantine policies would affect their plans, it said.
Indian repondents were the most optimistic of those interviewed, with 86 percent expressing confidence that they would travel internationally within a year.
Respondents from India, Vietnam and China were the most willing to endure inconveniences while traveling, but those from the same three countries, as well as Japan, were also the most pessimistic about their respective countries relaxing border controls, with 37 percent saying that there were “uncomfortable” with the situation in their respective home nations.
Among Taiwanese respondents, the proportion who expressed doubt that Taiwan was ready to open its borders was 37 percent, while 29 percent said that the nation is ready, the report said.
Respondents from Japan and South Korea were the most opposed to the interruptions to international travel, with 47 percent of Japanese and 32 percent of South Koreans expressing frustration with the situation, the report showed.
Sixty-eight percent of Taiwanese respondents said that they could accept their travel plans being interrupted, while only 9 percent were unwilling to accept such disruptions, it said.
Taipei and New Taipei City government officials are aiming to have the first phase of the Wanhua-Jungho-Shulin Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line completed and opened by 2027, following the arrival of the first train set yesterday. The 22km-long Light Green Line would connect four densely populated districts in Taipei and New Taipei City: Wanhua (萬華), Jhonghe (中和), Tucheng (土城) and Shulin (樹林). The first phase of the project would connect Wanhua and Jhonghe districts, with Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Chukuang (莒光) being the terminal stations. The two municipalities jointly hosted a ceremony for the first train to be used
MILITARY AID: Taiwan has received a first batch of US long-range tactical missiles ahead of schedule, with a second shipment expected to be delivered by 2026 The US’ early delivery of long-range tactical ballistic missiles to Taiwan last month carries political and strategic significance, a military source said yesterday. According to the Ministry of National Defense’s budget report, the batch of military hardware from the US, including 11 sets of M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and 64 MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems, had been scheduled to be delivered to Taiwan between the end of this year and the beginning of next year. However, the first batch arrived last month, earlier than scheduled, with the second batch —18 sets of HIMARS, 20 MGM-140 missiles and 864 M30
Representative to the US Alexander Yui delivered a letter from the government to US president-elect Donald Trump during a meeting with a former Trump administration official, CNN reported yesterday. Yui on Thursday met with former US national security adviser Robert O’Brien over a private lunch in Salt Lake City, Utah, with US Representative Chris Stewart, the Web site of the US cable news channel reported, citing three sources familiar with the matter. “During that lunch the letter was passed along, and then shared with Trump, two of the sources said,” CNN said. O’Brien declined to comment on the lunch, as did the Taipei
A woman who allegedly attacked a high-school student with a utility knife, injuring his face, on a Taipei metro train late on Friday has been transferred to prosecutors, police said yesterday. The incident occurred near MRT Xinpu Station at about 10:17pm on a Bannan Line train headed toward Dingpu, New Taipei City police said. Before police arrived at the station to arrest the suspect, a woman surnamed Wang (王) who is in her early 40s, she had already been subdued by four male passengers, one of whom was an off-duty Taipei police officer, police said. The student, 17, who sustained a cut about
RSS