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July 2, 2008
UPFRONT
Taiwanese wait eagerly for Chinese visitor boom
By Ong Hwee Hwee
SUN MOON LAKE (TAIWAN) - TAIWANESE boat captain Chen Chin-chung is eagerly anticipating an influx of tourists from China.

He takes visitors on his gleaming white yacht, the 'Chung-hsin 3', across the picturesque Sun Moon Lake, and has seen how investments have poured into the scenic spot ahead of the big-spending Chinese.

'Look at all these new hotels which have sprung up,' he says as he circles the lake, nestled among the mountains in central Nantou county.

'And ferry operators have invested in at least 60 new yachts. I have never seen anything quite like this in my 10 years here,' the 43-year-old tells The Straits Times.

The usually-tranquil lake is ready for the Chinese tourists arriving this week.

The first batch of 760 mainland travellers - handpicked from tens of thousands of applicants - will arrive on Friday on the first weekend charter flights between the longtime political rivals.

From July 18, up to 3,000 mainlanders a day will be allowed to travel directly to Taiwan in tour groups.

Since 2002, when mainlanders were first allowed in, the visitors had to come via a third location, such as Hong Kong, and Taiwan allowed only 1,000 a day.

But an agreement inked between Beijing and Taipei when they resumed formal talks last month now allows three times as many to come, and to travel directly.

Sun Moon Lake - which resembles a Chinese landscape painting with its clear turquoise waters and mountainous backdrop - is well-placed to ride the Chinese tourism wave.

A favourite vacation spot of the late Kuomintang (KMT) leader Chiang Kai-shek, it tops the must-see list of mainland visitors.

At least seven hotels are being planned or built on its shores, there are more parking lots for tour buses, and a NT$720-million (S$32 million) cable-car system is expected to be completed early next year.

'We are all ready,' says Mr Hung Wei-hsin, a senior tourism official there.

Across Taiwan, businesses are also gearing up.

About 50 new hotels have sprung up islandwide, shelves are lined with brochures printed in the simplified Chinese characters used on the mainland, and shops are stocking up on Taiwan's famous pineapple tarts.

The enthusiasm is fuelled by widespread optimism that a Chinese tourism boom will jumpstart Taiwan's sluggish tourism industry and economy.

Mainlanders aside, only 3.7 million visitors came last year - a fraction of the 28 million tourists to neighbouring Hong Kong.

Last year, Taiwanese made 4.6 million trips to the mainland, whereas Chinese residents made only 270,000 trips to the island.

'We are looking at potentially one million mainland visitors a year,' says Mr Yao Ta-kuang, chairman of Taiwan's Travel Agent Association.

Chinese visitors, who typically spend up to 10 days in Taiwan, are expected to generate NT$60 billion in tourist revenues, and create some 45,000 jobs.

According to a survey by Taiwan's tourism bureau, mainland tourists spent an average of US$293 (S$398) per person in Taiwan last year - only marginally less than the US$304 spent by visitors from Japan, currently the island's biggest tourism source.

Mr Liang Kuo-yuan, president of the Taipei-based Polaris Research Institute, thinks the real gain from Chinese arrivals extends beyond dollars and cents.

'More people-to-people contacts could promote understanding between the two sides, and hopefully ease tension,' he tells The Straits Times.

Others are hopeful that Taiwan's democratic ways might rub off on the visitors, who are known to stay up late in their hotel rooms watching political satire and talkshows on television.

In a recent interview, Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou hoped that cross-strait tourism could dramatically change the perceptions mainlanders and Taiwanese have of each other.

But sceptics say any such change might not be entirely positive.

A health chief in southern Tainan city caused an uproar recently when she declared that 'every place visited by Chinese tourists will be sterilised' to avoid the spread of infectious diseases.

There could also be less-than-pleasant encounters between the mainlanders and members of the Falungong group that is banned in China. They are known to promote their cause at tourist attractions.

In a sign of how politics looms large even in tourism, the first batch of mainland visitors - comprising Chinese officials - will skip monuments linked to the late KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek, who established a separate government in Taiwan after losing a civil war with the Chinese communist forces in 1949.

Ms Tsai Ing-wen, chairman of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, wonders if Taiwanese are psychologically prepared for the spike in mainland arrivals.

'You have 3,000 mainland tourists coming in each day to stay for an average of one week. That means 21,000 mainlanders on the streets every day,' she says. 'It might be too massive for the whole society here to digest'.

hwee@sph.com.sg

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