Before the pandemic, Chinese travelers made up the largest portion of international tourists in Taiwan, but they haven’t been able to enter the country in over three years. Many are wondering whether reinstating travel ties between the two countries is coming in the near future.
It’s been a long time since Chinese tourists filled the halls of Taiwan’s airports. Flights between the two countries are usually half empty. Most passengers are either returning home or traveling for business purposes.
While passenger numbers are low, several airlines are looking to increase their weekly flight numbers between Taiwan and China, starting in mid-June. Beijing banned Chinese tourists from traveling independently to Taiwan in August 2019 and Taiwan banned Chinese tour groups in 2020 due to the pandemic.
Taiwan’s Travel Agent Association recently sent a representative to Beijing, so plans for reopening tourism between the two countries may be in the works. But the association’s representative Lin I-shun (林義順) says he hasn’t received any notifications about lifting the restrictions.
Lin also says the government has been promoting lots of initiatives to encourage international tourism, including cash incentives. But he adds that the government has not been working as hard to attract Chinese tourists.
Even if tourism reopens between the two countries, there could be more problems on the horizon. Ninety percent of Chinese people use mobile payment methods, but Taiwanese people can face some barriers when applying for Chinese e-payment accounts. Taiwanese tourism industry workers say they will do their best to arrange trips in China that avoid places where cash payments are not accepted.
While Taiwan’s tourism industry is starting to rebuild after the pandemic, doing the same for cross-strait tourism may not be so easy.