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Updated Wednesday, March 30, 2011 11:26 pm TWN, By Alan Fong,The China Post with CNA

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Convience stores allowed to sell plane, ferry tickets

The China Post with CNA--The Legislative Yuan yesterday approved an amendment allowing convenience stores and post offices to sell domestic airline and ferry tickets.

The amendment to Article 27 of the Act for the Development of Tourism, which passed the third reading at the legislature, allows businesses other than travel agencies to sell tickets of transportation land, sea and air that are necessary for daily life. Before the amendment tickets were only available at domestic travel agencies.

Convenient store chain 7-Eleven and Uni Air were each fined NT$90,000 for violating the Act for the Development of Tourism last year for selling Uni Air tickets via the convenient stores' e-commerce machines. Despite that, the Tourism Bureau found the service helpful particularly for residents and members of the army in Taiwan's outlying islands.

Ruling Kuomintang Legislator Tsao Erh-chung, who proposed the amendment, also said the new change would benefit people of outlying islets, saving them the inconvenience of having to go to airports or travel agents to buy air or sea tickets.

He said that for many island residents, buying tickets for air travel between their home and Taiwan main island was a necessary part of their daily lives rather than a matter of leisure, justifying the need for the amendment.

“Take myself as an example. Sometimes I take the Tai-Ma vessel to commute to the Legislative Yuan, must I be required to buy tickets from travel agencies? Does it constitutes travelling when I take a plane back to Matsu?” said Tsao, a native of the outlying island of Matsu.

Opposition Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker Yeh Yi-jin suggested the amendment to gone further and allow international airline tickets to be bought at convenience stores and post offices in the future.

International flight tickets are not covered by the amendment because their more complicated purchase procedure requires the professional expertise of travel agencies, Tourism Bureau Director-General Janice Lai (賴瑟珍) explained.

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