Taiwan-China travel restrictions loosened further (update)
ROC Central News Agency
2011/11/10 22:24:57
Taipei, Nov. 10 (CNA) China has decided to further ease travel restrictions to allow more Chinese tourists to visit Taiwan, officials from both sides said Thursday.
Chinese applicants who are part of their country's floating population can now submit their travel applications directly to the local government where their lineal relatives live, according to Taiwan's Tourism Bureau and China's National Tourism Administration.
They can also apply through companies and organizations they belong to without having to return to their hometowns to file the applications, the bureau said.
The new policy will provide an incentive for family members, friends or colleagues who live in different cities to travel together to Taiwan, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said.
"A simplified application process will give Chinese tourists greater flexibility to make travel arrangements," said MAC Deputy Minister Liu Te-shun.
In addition, Liu said he hoped that China can gradually loosen related travel restrictions in the future to boost the momentum of cross-strait travel exchanges.
At present, the processing of travel documents in China is inconvenient because there are only 164 government-approved travel agencies in China, 39 of which are in Beijing, Shanghai and Xiamen.
The new policy is expected to boost cross-strait travel after the poor results of a program that was launched in June to allow Chinese tourists to visit Taiwan independently instead of only in tour groups.
As of mid-October, the number of individual Chinese tourists to Taiwan was an average 101 per day, according to National Immigration Agency (NIA) statistics.
To help address the issue, the local tourism bureau said, Taiwan will soon adopt a less complicated travel application process for Chinese tourists. (By Lee Hsin-Yin) ENDITEM/pc/J
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