Destinations known | Now that Taiwan has voted, will Beijing’s ban on solo tourists be lifted?

Beijing stopped issuing permits to individual travellers wanting to visit Taiwan last August and ‘until further notice’

After electing the independence-leaning DPP for a second term, can the island really expect mainland Chinese to return?

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Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen celebrates her election victory with supporters in Taipei, Taiwan, on January 11. Photo: AP

Mercedes Hutton

Published: 8:45am, 15 Jan 2020Updated: 4:22pm, 15 Jan 2020

Taiwan delivered a resounding rebuke to China on January 11, re-electing Tsai Ing-wen’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and rejecting the opposition Kuomintang party’s message, put forth by Kaohsiung’s populist mayor, Han Kuo-yu, that the self-ruled island needed to cosy up to its cross-strait neighbour. Presumably, Beijing isn’t best pleased, but will it be reversing its ban on independent tourists travelling to Taiwan now that the election is over?

Last year, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced that it would stop issuing independent travel permits to people from 47 major cities from August 1 “until further notice”, causing visitor numbers from mainland China to fall in November and December to lows not seen for a decade, according to English-language daily Taiwan News. The move was purely political; a reaction to Tsai’s disavowal of the “one country, two systems” model for Taiwan and her support for the protesters in Hong Kong, and an attempt to inflict economic pain and damage the DPP’s chances of winning a second term.

However, it didn’t work. Not only did Tsai trounce Han, but Taiwan welcomed a record number of arrivals last year. On December 13, Taiwan News reported that the tourist who took the 2019 total over that of the previous year (11,066,707; also a record) was a first-timer from South Korea who was there to “taste the local food and visit Taiwan’s museums”. According to statistics released by the Tourism Bureau on January 6, the island recorded 11.84 million visitors in 2019, exceeding its target of 11.28 million.

That mainland China remained the largest source market, accounting for almost 26 per cent of arrivals in the first 10 months of 2019, is worth bearing in mind, though. While relaxed visa requirements have seen a rise in visitors from Japan and South Korea, a Taiwan News article stated that travel agencies foresaw the mainland Chinese downturn continuing until after Tsai is sworn in for a second term, in May.

A tourist takes a photograph at Liberty Square in Taipei, Taiwan. Photo: EPA

Now that the election is over, Lin Chia-lung, Taiwan’s minister of transportation and communications, has called on Beijing to relax its restrictions, according to Taiwan News. But seeing as the results didn’t quite go as hoped, at least for those in the mainland, it seems unlikely that tourists from the Middle Kingdom will be rushing to experience Taiwan, whether they are allowed to or not.

.css-1m2rp1p{color:#34b8b5;}Destinations known | Now that Taiwan has voted, will Beijing’s ban on solo tourists be lifted?

Destinations known | Now that Taiwan has voted, will Beijing’s ban on solo tourists be lifted?