Chinese tourists to hit record

At a press conference held after the National People's Congress in Beijing on March 13, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao expressed a strong interest in making a sightseeing tour of Taiwan's popular scenic spots like Alishan (Mt. Ali) and Soon Moon Lake. “Although I'm 67 years old, I would like to visit Taiwan if possible. I would like to go even if I can't walk and I have to crawl,” Wen said.

Travel agencies said that Wen's remarks have significantly reflected the willingness of most Chinese people to visit Taiwan, and have inspired them to realize their trips to the island sooner.

Statistics compiled by the Tourism Bureau under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) showed that from March 13 to 19, the daily number of tourist arrivals from China averaged at 2,303, with the weekly number reaching a new high of 16,121.

On March 16 alone, as many as 3,938 mainland Chinese tourists arrived in Taiwan, including the first group of 1,600 distributors and employees of Amway China visiting the island for a three-day sightseeing tour. This marked the first time that the daily number of inbound tourists from China has broken the 3,000 mark.

With the arrival of the second group of 1,600 Amway tourists from China, the daily number of tourist arrivals from the other side of the Taiwan Strait hit another record of 4,700 yesterday, the same tallies indicated.

The Tourism Bureau estimated the weekly number of inbound tourists from China to set a new high of over 17,000 this week.

Local travel agencies have been busy handling floods of applications filed by their mainland Chinese counterparts to organize tourist groups to visit Taiwan.

Some travel agencies are stepping up their promotion campaigns. “In 2009, only 2009 Chinese yuan (renminbi) is required for making a trip to Taiwan,” one travel agency says in its campaign program.

In fact, local travel agencies said, the tour packages available for mainland Chinese tourists have been well diversified, and quite a few mainland Chinese have applied to visit Taiwan for the second time within half a year.

Meanwhile, the Tourism Bureau said that since the government liberalized sightseeing tours by mainland Chinese in July 2008, there had been a total of 91,274 tourist arrivals from mainland China as of the end of February 2009, with the daily number of such tourists soaring past the level of over 1,000 from the initial 274.

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