President Ma expects to see self-guided Chinese tourists by middle of the year

While receiving a delegation from the medical community in southern Tainan yesterday afternoon, President Ma said the plan for individual mainland Chinese tours in Taiwan can be launched around midyear, though he did not give a specific date.

Ma said the plan will help bolster Taiwan's medical tourism industry and beef up the nation's overall international competitiveness.

Taiwan now has to compete with Japan, Korea, Singapore, Thailand, India, and mainland China for medical tourism. The self-guided trips by mainland Chinese to Taiwan will not only generate business for the medical community here, but also help prevent the luring of medical experts from Taiwan by medical institutions in China, Ma said.

There are complaints from tour operators and hoteliers in southern Taiwan that no direct flights across the Taiwan Strait reach the Kaohsiung Hsiaokang International Airport because few tour groups from China choose to arrive in or depart from Kaohsiung.

Ma said government agencies have been studying plans to encourage more Chinese tourists to use the aviation facilities in southern Taiwan.

Tourism delegates from Taiwan and China strove to hammer out a final agreement over the self-guided Chinese tours.

Industry sources said the Taiwan side has decided to scrap a proposed rule requiring incoming self-guided Chinese tourists to pay a guarantee amount up front for their trips to Taiwan. Chinese delegates had been steadfastly opposed to the rule.

A compromise could be reached by requiring the self-guided Chinese tourists to use their family or friends as sponsors. Other more convenient options include the use of bank deposit documents from banks or student ID certificate from their schools, said the sources.

Such rules are stricter than most nations open to self-guided Chinese tourists on concern that visiting Chinese are more likely to overstay their allowable period in Taiwan.

The sources said Beijing and Shanghai will be the two test cities in the plan. There will be a ceiling of 500 travelers from the two areas each day and the maximum length of stay will be 15 days.

More people and cities will be added following a review of the test program, said the sources.

Premier Wu Den-yih recently said that the arrival of self-guided Chinese tourists should not be later than July. Negotiators are expected to reach a final pact as early as possible for final approval from the authorities in Taipei and Beijing.

The average number of Chinese travelers joining group tours in Taiwan has increased to more than 5,500 people each day. Industry analysts expect the number of Chinese tourists will rise to more than 1.6 million per year and generate business revenues exceeding NT$90 billion for 2011.

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