More mainland tourists to visit Taiwan

Authorities on both sides of the Taiwan Strait will allow more residents of mainland cities to visit Taiwan as individual tourists in 2013, a mainland spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

Expanding the list of eligible cities will be done in an active, yet prudent and step-by-step manner, Fan Liqing, spokeswoman for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said at a press conference in Beijing.

Detailed arrangements would be made through the mainland's Association for Tourism Exchange Across the Taiwan Strait and Taiwan's Taiwan Strait Tourism Association, according to Fan.

The two associations launched their first round of talks on the matter on Tuesday, and they will focus on quality of tourist services for mainland visitors and joint efforts in enhancing travel safety.

Asked to comment on Taiwan's proposal to open two small military-controlled islands close to the mainland, Fan said the opening of more scenic sites would be a good thing for both sides and beneficial for further exchanges.

She also reiterated the mainland's policy against gambling and cited a previous agreement on banning travel agencies from guiding or organizing for mainland tourists to participate in such activities.

An overall ban on traveling to the island was lifted by Taiwanese authorities in July 2008. However, mainlanders at that time could only travel there as part of tightly run tour groups, business trips, academic visits and trips related to family affairs.

Taiwan first opened the door to individual tourists from mainland cities on June 28, 2011, but only to residents of three major cities - Beijing, Shanghai and Xiamen.

The list of eligible cities was expanded to 13 on April 1 last year, as results of negotiations between the two associations.

Taiwan's statistics show that of the more than 2.58 million mainlanders who visited Taiwan in 2012, some 190,000 of them did so as individual tourists, 5.3 times the number in 2011.

The mainland was the largest source of tourists for Taiwan last year, with mainlanders accounting for 36 percent of all visitors to the island.