Taiwan News
Date: 2016-07-17
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer
The first tour group returns to Taiwan from Turkey after the coup.
Seven Taiwanese tour groups have decided to continue traveling in Turkey despite a red travel alert issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs advising people not to travel to the country that was rocked by a military coup on Friday evening.
After the travel alert was issued, the Tourism Bureau has notified travel agencies to arrange for tour groups to return to Taiwan as soon as they can.
Andy Yu, spokesman of Lion Travel Services, which currently operates eight tour groups in Turkey, said that except for one group which was originally scheduled to head back on Saturday but delayed their departure till Sunday, all other seven groups have requested to continue their itineraries. Because of their insistence, Lion Travel has asked all the group members to sign a paper for agreeing on continuing their trip, Yu said.
Yu said the seven tour groups were currently travelling at locations outside Istanbul, and feedback from tour leaders indicated everything was peaceful and the groups would return to Taiwan according to their original schedules. [FULL STORY]
