Taiwan has rejected applications by Chinese tourism officials to enter the nation for an international travel fair next month, authorities said yesterday, citing the “cross-strait situation” with China.
Taiwan reopened its borders to most tourists in October last year, but those from China remain barred. It also does not allow Taiwanese tour groups to visit China, but individual travelers are free to go there.
Organizers of the Taipei International Summer Travel Exposition had invited provincial tourism officials from China, but their applications were rejected “after taking into consideration the overall cross-strait situation,” the National Immigration Agency said yesterday.
Photo: Reuters
“There are doubts over the necessity, urgency and irreplaceability of their participation, and therefore their applications are not approved,” it said in a statement.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said that about 70 officials had their entry permits denied.
However, “nearly 200 [tourism] operators and actors” from China will still be attending the fair, MAC spokesman Jan Jyh-horng (詹志宏) said.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) had on Wednesday criticized Taipei for the travel restrictions on group tours from Taiwan to China, adding that Taiwan should “create conditions for cross-strait tourism industry exchanges.”
“They should face up to the wishes and expectations of the majority of Taiwanese people and the tourism industry, and lift the unreasonable restrictions on group tours,” TAO spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) said.
Taiwan should also “create conditions for cross-strait tourism industry exchanges,” she added.
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