Destinations Known | Mainland China-Taiwan tourism turned a corner 17 years ago. But that was then
- Beijing’s tourism chief Shao Qiwei’s 10-day visit to Taiwan in 2005 paved the way for mainland tourists to travel to the island
- It’s difficult to imagine a high-profile mainland tourism representative again touring Taipei 101 or the Lungshan Temple as a harbinger of better times
“The head of [the China] National Tourism Administration yesterday arrived in Taiwan for a 10-day visit to pave the way for mainland tourists to travel to the island,” reads a South China Morning Post report.
No, the visit was not in response to this month’s relaxing of Covid-19 restrictions, unfortunately; tourism chief Shao Qiwei visited Taiwan in October 2005, when the relationship between Beijing and Taipei was thawing rather than freezing.
Although tourists are beginning to return to Taiwan – after more than two-and-a-half years of border controls, international arrivals now need only to monitor their health for a week and obtain a negative rapid antigen test result the day they land – it doesn’t look as though any from mainland China will be joining them for the foreseeable future.
On October 13, “245 tourists in 20 tour groups arrived in Taiwan, mainly from Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea and Singapore, on the first day the nation lifted restrictions on inbound tour groups imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic,” according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA). The first 45 arrived in two groups from Thailand.
“According to the [Tourism] bureau, 3,630 more people in 230 tour groups will arrive in Taiwan by the end of October.”
As well as Asia, visitors are expected from Europe: “Frankfurt airport [in Germany] is the most important hub for flights from Europe to Taiwan and China Airlines, Taiwan’s flagship carrier, is set to increase its flights on the route from five to seven per week in November, back to the pre-pandemic level,” reports CNA.
