Taiwan and China will discuss boosting quality of travel tours

Officials from the Taipei-based Taiwan Strait Tourism and Travel Association, led by Tourism Bureau Chief Secretary Wu Chao-yen, left for Macau Thursday to attend the meeting with their counterparts from China's Cross-Strait Tourism Association.

Wu said the meeting will discuss the establishment of an information exchange platform and a transparent pricing system, in the interest of providing good quality tours for Chinese sightseers to Taiwan.

But, he added, the two sides will not touch on the issue of allowing Chinese tourists to visit Taiwan on their own, as the Cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council has not given permission for this topic to be included in the discussions.

At present, Chinese tourists are permitted to visit Taiwan only in groups of least five people.

Local small business owners have asked that the government remove the restriction, contending that allowing individual travelers from China to visit would help them earn more tourist dollars.

Tourism Bureau Deputy Director-General David Wei-chun Hsieh said Wednesday both Taiwan and China are amenable to working out some monitoring mechanisms to serve that end.

The two sides are planning to set up a platform for the exchange of information to jointly prevent tour agencies on either side from engaging in a price war, he said.

Growing numbers of Chinese tourists have been flocking to Taiwan in recent months amid improved cross-Taiwan Strait relations and it has been reported that some local travel agencies have slashed their prices to below the market price

to lure more Chinese tour groups.

To ensure the quality of the tours, the Tourism Bureau had mandated that Taiwan-based travel agencies charge Chinese tour groups no less than US$80 per person per day, but it later dropped the figure to US$60 at the request of local businesses.

Fielding questions from lawmakers at a meeting of the legislature's Transportation Committee yesterday, Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo said travel agencies caught illegally operating low-end tours for Chinese sightseers will be seriously punished.

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