Tourist base for cross-straits travel widens

Individual tourists from 47 Chinese mainland cities can now visit China's Taiwan province, following the addition of 11 more cities into the pilot tourism program on March 18.

Citizens from the 11 newly-added cities (Haikou, Lanzhou, Yinchuan, Changzhou, Zhoushan, Huizhou and Weihai, Longyan, Guilin, Xuzhou and Urumqi) can visit Taiwan starting from April 15.

The cross-straits tourism program first started on June 28, 2011, and now includes 42 cities from 24 provincial level regions, as well as the four municipalities of Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing and Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. Many cities have been a part of the program for over three years.

As of Feb 2015, a total of 2.19 million Chinese mainland citizens have visited Taiwan on individual tours. 1.18 million tourists scheduled their tours in 2014, 125.8 percent more than the year previously.

The Association for Tourism Exchange Across the Taiwan Straits and the Taiwan Strait Tourism Association have been instrumental organizations behind the tourism boom. Two factors that the organizations consider when screening potential cities for membership are their tourist base and aviation infrastructure development.

In addition, 48 more travel agencies in the Chinese mainland have been added to the list of qualified agencies for organizing group tours to Taiwan. After six batches of additions to the list, there are now 311 qualified travel agencies to facilitate travel to Taiwan.