Some Taiwanese and Chinese travel agencies are allegedly offering fake self-guided tours in China, despite reciprocal bans on tourism groups issued by the two governments, sources said.
The Summer Travel Expo, opened on Friday at the Taiwan World Trade Center in Taipei, featured nearly 200 tourism-related entities selling various packaged tours, including China’s Association For Tourism Exchange Across the Taiwan Straits.
A number of China-based travel agencies promoted China’s scenic attractions and packaged tours but refrained from giving out information on tour dates or price.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Taipei and Beijing have mutually banned traveling in tour groups.
One Taiwanese travel agency’s Web site advertised self-guided tours to China featuring tour guides, buses, prearranged itineraries, with restrictions on the maximum size of tour groups and instructions saying travelers must stay with their groups during tours.
The agency said its Web site was outdated and it currently does not offer such services. The information on self-guided tours was later removed from the Web site.
No restrictions have ever been placed on the right of Taiwanese to visit China and the ban only targeted commercial tour groups, Tourism Bureau Deputy Director-General Trust Lin (林信任) said.
Group tours were allegedly being billed as self-guided tours with complimentary services to dodge regulations, he said, adding that such tourism packages could be legal depending on circumstances.
The bureau is monitoring the situation and would impose sanctions on travel agencies that breached the ban, Lin added.
There is nothing odd about travel agencies offering packaged self-guided tours, but the inclusion of complimentary services that resemble group tours could put the service provider at legal risks, High Quality of Travel Association chairman Ringo Lee (李奇嶽) said on Friday.
Anyone traveling in China can join a locally-organized tour group, but they do so at their own peril, as Taiwanese laws and regulations have no jurisdiction over Chinese companies, he said.
Taiwan applies strict liability on travel agencies for insurance claim purposes while in Chinese law liability only concerns negligent acts, he said, adding that Chinese traveler’s insurance policies typically pay less than Taiwan’s.
Although China’s regulations on travelers’ safety are not as extensive as Taiwan’s, it is still average compared with other countries frequented by Taiwanese, Lee said, adding that buying traveler’s insurance is essential in managing risks.
Taiwanese traveling abroad should only use the services of licensed travel agencies and keep a copy of all receipts and contracts, Travel Quality Assurance Association chairman Chang Yung-chen (張永成) said.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its