RETHINKING VISAS: The government is to step up visa reviews and randomly select applications for additional inspection, as it searches for 152 Vietnamese ‘tourists’
Taipei Times
Date: Dec 27, 2018
By: Shelley Shan / Staff reporter
The government is to revisit the “Kuan Hung Pilot Project” after 152 of 153
A security camera image shows a Vietnamese tour group member walking toward the street as others walk into a hotel in Kaohsiung on Sunday, as some of the tourists were allegedly driven away in cars by traffickers.
Photo copied by Huang Liang-chieh, Taipei Times
Vietnamese visitors in tour groups went missing last week, the largest group of runaway tourists since the project began in 2015, the Tourism Bureau said yesterday.
The project to issue electronic visas is designed to increase the number of quality tour groups visiting from India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos — nations targeted by the New Southbound Policy.
The tourists were able to travel to Taiwan because of the project, bureau Director-General Chou Yung-hui (周永暉) said, adding that the agency would strengthen visa reviews.
It would also work with the National Immigration Agency (NIA) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ (MOFA) Bureau of Consular Affairs to randomly select applications for additional inspection, Chou added. [FULL STORY]
