TAINAN AIRPORT OPEN FOR DIRECT FLIGHTS

It has been announced earlier this week that the Tainan Airport will become the ninth on the island to accommodate direct flights between Taiwan and China. But as our next story reports, there are still a couple of uncertainties that prevent the local tourism industry to embrace the news.

Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and its Chinese counterpart, China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) have announced at a press conference that the two organizations have decided to increase the direct flights from 370 per week to at least 550 flights per week.

In addition to the increased number of cross-strait flights, airports in Tainan and Yancheng city of China's Jiangsu Province, will also be joining the direct flight service.

With the individual Chinese tourists being allowed to visit Taiwan at the end of June at the earliest, many local governments are offering incentives for the travel industry to attract Chinese tourists.

Miaoli County is planning to offer subsidies to travel agencies and hotels that receive independent Chinese tourists to travel in Miaoli, with 500 NT dollars per Chinese tourist,

while Taitung County government is providing each Chinese tourist an Easycard that is worth 150 NTdollars to help them take the public transportation to tour around the city.

As for Tainan, with the airport being selected as the 9th airport for direct flights in Taiwan, Tainan City mayor Lai Ching-de has instructed the city government officials to prepare for the coming Chinese tourists, from setting up several major travelling routes within the city,

establishing a website with sightseeing and transportation information, improving the service at the airport, to offering joint discounts with travel agencies, hotels and souvenir shops.

However, even with so much effort, Tainan's Tourism Bureau says that there should be at least 15 direct flights per week in order to sustain the operation of the airport.

Tourism Bureau Director Chen Chun-an said that the most important thing to boost Tainan's tourism lies in the regular direct flights. And the flights will bring individual tourists to Tainan as well as tourist groups.

He said that the first step is to establish the transportation network connecting the airport, and then to offer four or five major packages for individual Chinese tourists.

They believe that the historic sites in Tainan city will be the major feature to attract more tourists.

Still, some people from the travel industry said that Tainan City government has to first improve the public transportation network connecting sightseeing spots before welcoming more individual Chinese tourists.

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