Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/12/26
By: Lee Hsin-Yin

Image taken from Pixabay

Taipei, Dec. 26 (CNA) Taiwanese travel agencies have fallen victim to inadequate government reviews of visa applications and poor law enforcement in cases of tourist runaways, industry representatives said Wednesday after 152 Vietnamese tourists went missing upon entering Taiwan.

Ringo Lee (李奇嶽), head of the Travel Agent Association of the ROC, said the government should tighten its tourism code to curb illegal immigration through package tours and come up with effective measures when serious situations occur.

“Local travel agencies are victims themselves in cases like this because they have no authority to control their customers,” Lee said, referring to the largest-ever case of tourists deliberately leaving their tours under a special program launched in November 2015.

That program made it easier for citizens of Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, India and Brunei to visit Taiwan, in part through waivers of visa fees for groups of at least five tourists from the six countries, as long as they were organized by Tourism Bureau-designated “quality travel agencies” or part of company-sponsored groups.    [FULL  STORY]