Transportation minister unveils aid plan for domestic tourism

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/07/31
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The Cabinet slammed the Chinese decision to stop issuing travel

documents to individual travelers from several Chinese cities beginning August 1 without any prior notice.

The move was either seen as punishment for Taiwan’s support for the anti-extradition bill protests in Hong Kong, or as preventive action to keep Chinese citizens away from Taiwan’s competitive campaign for the January 11, 2020 presidential and legislative elections.

Cabinet spokeswoman Kolas Yotaka strongly reproached the Chinese government, saying it had broken agreements without any consultation and punished citizens from both sides instead of the Taiwan government. Beijing should drop its arrogant posture, TV station SETN quoted the spokeswoman as saying.

Despite the absence of any official announcement, travel agents in Taiwan estimated that the Chinese ban would last until after the elections and lead to a drop of 700,000 visitors. Even with a separate fall in the number of visitors from China already occurring, Taiwan had been able to make up for the shortfall by attracting more tourists from other Asian countries, especially from Southeast Asian nations like Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines.    [FULL  STORY]