The Tourism Administration yesterday confirmed that tour operators from China’s Fujian Province had postponed their visits to Lienchiang County (Matsu) due to a scheduling conflict, but would not need to reapply for entry permits if they choose to enter the nation at a later date.
Tour operators from Fuzhou City were scheduled to arrive in Matsu on Monday to scout for potential travel routes, after the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism on April 28 announced that residents of Fujian Province would be allowed to travel to the outlying island.
Residents could travel to Taiwan proper once the ferry service between the province’s Pingtan City and Taiwan is resumed, it said.
Photo: Tsai Ssu-pei, Taipei Times
The local tourism industry has viewed the trip as the beginning of normal cross-strait tourism exchanges, but the Fuzhou City Travel Association wrote a letter to the Matsu Tourism Association saying that it had to postpone the trip, as the city had important celebratory events during the Dragon Boat Festival long weekend.
“Our position of welcoming Chinese tourists remains unchanged. They need not reapply for entry permits if they come at a later date,” Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Trust Lin (林信任) told reporters on the sidelines of a news conference promoting tours to Matsu.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Li Meng-yen (李孟諺) said on a separate occasion that he hoped the tour operators would still visit Matsu despite the trip being unavoidably postponed.
“We hope that cross-strait travel would resume in a gradual and equitable manner,” Li told reporters before attending a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee in Taipei. “Taiwan has allowed individuals to travel to China, and tours to China that were arranged before the group tour ban was reintroduced are permitted to go, too. Compared with China, we are open to cross-strait tourism.”
As of Monday, about 3.45 million international tourists had visited Taiwan so far this year, Li said, citing data from the National Immigration Agency.
“We still aim to attract 10 million international visitors this year, and are focusing marketing campaigns on Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia and North America in the second half of this year,” he said.
The government is to open tourism offices in Vancouver and Manila this year, he said.
To comply with the New Southbound Policy, Li said that the ministry would ask that the visa-waiver program for Filipino and Thai visitors be continued, and tourism campaigns be intensified among Muslim tourists and the rising middle class in Southeast Asia.
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
Snow fell in the mountainous areas of northern, central and eastern Taiwan in the early hours of yesterday, as cold air currents moved south. In the northern municipality of Taoyuan, snow started falling at about 6am in Fusing District (復興), district head Su Tso-hsi (蘇佐璽) said. By 10am, Lalashan National Forest Recreation Area, as well as Hualing (華陵), Sanguang (三光) and Gaoyi (高義) boroughs had seen snowfall, Su said. In central Taiwan, Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County and Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Nantou County saw snowfall of 5cm and 6cm respectively, by 10am, staff at the parks said. It began snowing
The 2025 Kaohsiung Wonderland–Winter Amusement Park event has teamed up with the Japanese manga series Chiikawa this year for its opening at Love River Bay yesterday, attracting more than 10,000 visitors, the city government said. Following the success of the “2024 Kaohsiung Wonderland” collaboration with a giant inflatable yellow duck installation designed by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, this year the Kaohsiung Tourism Bureau collaborated with Chiikawa by Japanese illustrator Nagano to present two giant inflatable characters. Two inflatable floats — the main character, Chiikwa, a white bear-like creature with round ears, and Hachiware, a white cat with a blue-tipped tail
HOLIDAY EXERCISE: National forest recreation areas from north to south offer travelers a wide choice of sights to connect with nature and enjoy its benefits Hiking is a good way to improve one’s health, the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency said, as it released a list of national forest recreation areas that travelers can visit during the Lunar New Year holiday. Taking a green shower of phytoncides in the woods could boost one’s immunity system and metabolism, agency Director-General Lin Hwa-ching (林華慶) cited a Japanese study as saying. For people visiting northern Taiwan, Lin recommended the Dongyanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Taoyuan’s Fusing District (復興). Once an important plantation in the north, Dongyanshan (東眼山) has a number of historic monuments, he said. The area is broadly covered by
RSS