Travel Operators Angry After U-Turn on Group Tours to China

Travel agencies in Taiwan are angry after the government walked back plans to resume group tours to China after a three-year hiatus.

Transcript

00:00 Taiwan's tour operators have been dealt a big blow.

00:05 The government has walked back on plans to allow tour groups to China, a ban put in place

00:09 during the COVID pandemic.

00:11 There will be a brief exception for tours that are already organized and paid for, but

00:15 come June, the ban will take force again, closing off one of the tourism industry's

00:20 biggest markets.

00:22 The government says China's unfriendly attitude toward Taiwan is to blame.

00:26 China claims Taiwan and regularly threatens to invade, but in recent years it's tried

00:30 to sway Taiwanese people with economic pressure too.

00:33 A Chinese ban on its citizens visiting Taiwan, imposed in two stages from 2019 to 2020, still

00:40 stands.

00:41 Businesses that relied on Chinese tourists are still struggling, if they've survived

00:45 at all.

00:46 And there's also been psychological pressure too.

00:49 China recently rerouted one of its domestic flight paths, moving closer to the center

00:53 of the Taiwan Strait that separates Taiwan and China.

00:56 Officials in Taipei have long seen anything past it as a no-go zone for China.

01:11 Independent Taiwanese travelers are still free to travel to China, but in Taiwan, many

01:16 prefer organized tours.

01:18 And China tours are especially big business.

01:21 The government planned to cap the daily number of Taiwanese tour group members at 2,000 a

01:26 day.

01:27 But even if tour operators didn't expect an immediate return to the pre-pandemic days,

01:30 when the big companies sent around 10,000 clients to China a month, they did at least

01:35 hope for a gradual return to normal.

01:37 Their reaction to the news has been bitter.

01:59 As Taiwan's ties with China remain fraught, a tourism industry dependent on goodwill from

02:03 both sides is stuck in a difficult position.

02:06 With no obvious way out.

02:08 Laufey Lee and John Ventriest for Taiwan Plus.

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