PREVENT CHINESE TOURISTS FROM ABSCONDING

Preparations are underway for individual Chinese travelers to come to Taiwan on June 28th, while the National Immigration Agency is set to formally announce regulations for tour agencies to follow.

Under the new policy, travel agencies will be held partly responsible if the individual travelers overstay in Taiwan. The Civil Aeronautics Administration has also announced that the airfare from Shanghai to Beijing will be reduced by 10 percent.

As the cross-strait direct flights will be increased from 370 flights to 558 flights per week, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) also announced that the price for round-trip ticket, valid for 14 days for Taipei-Shanghai flight will be reduced by 10 percent, which will likely to cost less than NT$10,000.

"After the flights are increased between Taipei and Shanghai,

we have negotiated with domestic airline companies

to lower the air ticket price,

and to increase the number of seats of lower prices to up to 25 %."

Meanwhile, as individual Chinese tourists are allowed to visit Taiwan starting June 28th, the National Immigration Agency ahs also established latest guidelines regulating the travel agencies to deal with Chinese tourists who overstay their visas.

Originally, the government asked the travel agencies to take responsibility for individual tourists who overstay their visas, but the policy has incited anger from travel agencies.

After negotiations, the Immigration Agency announced that if individual Chinese tourists overstay their visas by 15 days, the agency will first issue a warning to the travel agency, and will issue a fine or suspend the operation of the travel agency at the second instance.

Travel agencies can choose to either pay a NT$100,000 fine or stop receiving independent Chinese tourists.

"Travel agency only make a profit of NT$500 to NT$1,000 per independent Chinese tourist.

If a travel agent is unlucky and one Chinese tourist goes missing,

the agent can make a decision based on economic considerations.

They can choose to continue or to stop receiving independent Chinese tourists."

The National Immigration Agency will officially explain the details of the guidelines to the travel agencies and adopt a dual-track visa system, which issues electronic copy while keeping the hard copy in files.

◆ 追蹤更多華視影音及圖文新聞：
1.用Plurk追蹤華視影音及圖文新聞：追蹤
2.用Twitter追蹤華視影音及圖文新聞：追蹤