Xinhua News Agency, Taipei, June 24 (Reporters Fu Shuangqi, Jin Liwang, Qi Xing) The summer sun is blazing. Tanned tourists wearing sunglasses and sun hats lined up on the pier and waited to board the ferry. The destination was Lanyu, which was more than 2 hours away from the island of Taiwan.
Zheng Shuping, an employee of Lanyu Jiajia Automobile Locomotive Rental Company, filled in the information in the record book while patiently answering customer inquiries, and also saw stitches to greet colleagues to take guests to pick up the car. This company has about 300 motorcycles and 4 cars. "Business is slowly improving in late May, and there are especially many people who rent a car this weekend, and it should be busier next," said Zheng Shuping.
Lanyu, with an area of about 45 square kilometers, is located on the Pacific Ocean southeast of Taiwan’s main island. It is the residence of Taiwanese minority ethnic Dawu people. The tourist season here is from April to September every year. In the first few months of this year, the impact of the New Coronary Pneumonia epidemic, like other tourist resorts in Taiwan, has also hit Lanyu’s tourism industry.
"From April to mid-May, the business is terrible, and it is good to have one guest a day." Zheng Shuping said.
Ahe, the owner of Lanyu's "Sea is Blue" cafe, said that compared with other tourist spots in Taiwan, Lanyu's transportation is more inconvenient and there are not many guests in previous years. This summer, maybe because everyone can’t travel abroad, so more people come to the islands to play.
"Rose," the owner of the local bed and breakfast "Eye of the Sky," told reporters that by the end of June, all four existing rooms had been booked. "Recently, Lanyu B&B should be full, especially two weeks before and after the Dragon Boat Festival."
Tourists riding motorbikes on the Lanyu coast road appeared in groups. From time to time, a group of diving enthusiasts gathered around the seaside, and the night market business also resumed.
According to media reports, about 1,600 tourists took a boat to Lanyu on June 20. Due to the increase in the number of tourists, the local power supply could not be loaded for a while, and the two main villages on the island were completely cut off for half an hour that night.
The epidemic in Taiwan has eased, and there have been no local confirmed cases for more than 10 weeks. From June 7, the Taiwan authorities lifted anti-epidemic measures on a large scale. In order to save the economy, the authorities encourage people to travel and consume. Popular attractions in counties and cities, especially outlying islands without confirmed cases of new coronary pneumonia, have become popular destinations.
On another remote island, Green Island, north of Lanyu, a reporter interviewed and found that tourist sentiment is also recovering. In the upcoming four-day long holiday of the Dragon Boat Festival, some homestay rooms have been fully booked.
The Dragon Boat Festival holiday, which began on June 25, is the first consecutive holiday since Taiwan’s anti-epidemic measures were lifted. The number of tourists in the main tourist hotspots on the island increased, and hotel reservation rates for hotels in Hualien, Taitung, Kenting and Tainan Significantly improved.