China News Service, Taipei, February 8 (Xinhua) In response to the announcement by the tourism authorities of the Taiwan authorities to suspend group travel for Taiwanese people to the mainland, Lai Cheng-yi, chairman of the Taiwan Chamber of Commerce, said on the 8th that the authorities should give priority to the interests of the people and fulfill their promises of opening up.
Lai Zhengyi said that there were countless calls from last night to this morning. Travel industry operators expressed strong anger and claimed that they had been deceived. The relevant industries are preparing to mobilize tens of thousands of people to go north after the year to protest on the streets against the authorities' changes in orders overnight, which will destroy the jobs of the tourism industry.
He said that the election is over and the authorities should comply with their pre-election commitments and allow Taiwanese group tourists to travel to the mainland in March. "At the end of last year, various travel agencies began to promote and attract group tourists. From March to May, they were almost fully booked, and 70% of them were booked in June and July. Seeing that there is less than a month left, everyone is busy until the end of the year. I was still happy to say that the performance of package tours to mainland China was full, but I didn’t expect that on the last working day of the year, bad news came. An administrative order ruined the dream of the travel industry.”
Lai Zhengyi pointed out that cross-strait tourism exchanges prospered in the past, bringing huge business opportunities to Taiwan. After the epidemic, the number of inbound tourists from many places around the world has returned to 70% to 80% of the pre-2019 numbers last year, and some have even exceeded the number of tourists before 2019. Only Taiwan is still promoting ideology, regardless of the rights and interests of the tourism industry and the people. As a result, only 6.4 million people came to Taiwan last year, a far cry from the 20 million people in 2019.
Lai Zhengyi said that the DPP authorities did not try to communicate with relevant units in the mainland and unilaterally announced a ban on recruiting tour groups to the mainland, which killed all travel industry operators. He pointed out that before the election, he said he would increase cross-strait exchanges, but after the election, the New Year gift package given to travel agencies actually asked travel agencies to stop soliciting group tourists to the mainland. This is tantamount to defrauding votes in the name of openness. Business operators are prohibited from organizing group tours to the mainland. The rights and interests of Taiwanese travel operators and tourists are most seriously injured.
Lai Zhengyi called on the Taiwan authorities to pay more attention to cross-strait issues, show more goodwill, strengthen interaction, and promptly discuss cross-strait travel and flights and other issues, and move towards greater openness and exchanges. (over)