Chinese Mainland Tour Groups To Visit Taiwan From Next Month

Chen Yunlin, chairman of the Chinese Mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, and Chiang Pin-kun, chairman of the Taiwan-based Straits Exchange Foundation, signed agreements on cross-strait weekend charter flights and mainland tourists' traveling to Taiwan.

Both of the agreements will take effect from June 20 and the first mainland Chinese tour group will arrive in Taiwan on July 18. According to the agreement allowing Chinese mainland citizens to travel to Taiwan, a maximum of 3,000 Chinese mainland tourists can travel to Taiwan per day. And the agreement also prescribes that only groups of 10 to 40 tourists are allowed to travel to Taiwan with a maximum stay of 10 days for each group.

The two sides agreed on establishment of representative offices to handle tourism issues. It is reportedly that there is a first batch of 13 provinces or cities permitted to organize tour groups to Taiwan. These are Beijing, Tianjin, Liaoning, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Shandong, Hubei, Guangdong, Chongqing, Yunnan, and Shaanxi.

According to the agreement on cross-strait weekend charter flights, the Chinese mainland agreed to open Beijing, Shanghai (Pudong), Guangzhou, Xiamen, and Nanjing as the first destinations of cross-strait weekend charter flights. Next, destinations such as Chengdu, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Dalian, Guilin, and Shenzhen as well as the other markets will be opened if the market requires. Taiwan will have eight destinations: Taipei, Taoyuan, Kaohsiung, Taichung, Penghu, Hualien, Kinmen, and Taitung. The charter flight service, which is scheduled to start from July 4, will include 36 round-trip flights every weekend, from Friday to the following Monday.