Taiwan to welcome more mainland tourists

TAIPEI -- Taiwan is to raise the daily quota for tourists from the Chinese mainland owing to increasing demand, according to a statement released by Taiwan's tourism authority on Tuesday night.

The statement said that the quota for the number of mainland tourists in traveling groups will be raised from 4,000 people per day to 5,000 per day, and the quota for mainland individual tourists will be doubled from 1,000 to 2,000 per day.

In the meantime, taking into consideration Taiwan's limited accommodation capacity and potential safety risks at some scenic spots, the authority said it will control the number of tourists from the mainland in high season, trying to transfer some visitors to slack seasons.

Since mainlanders were first allowed to visit the island in July 2008, the number of mainland tourists visiting Taiwan has kept up robust growth. Taiwan's statistics show that more than 2.58 million mainlanders visited Taiwan in 2012, including 1.78 million in groups, an increase of 46 percent year on year.

The authority added that it will encourage more individual tourists to visit Taiwan and promote more high-level tourist groups, so as to improve the overall traveling service in Taiwan.