Taiwan travel drop natural; there's no quota, official says

The government has never set quotas for mainland tourists traveling across the Taiwan Straits, the spokesman for the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office said on Wednesday about a recent decline in mainland tourists to the island.

"The change in tourist numbers is mainly driven by the market and based on the willingness of tourism operators and tourists. The government has never set any quota to limit the number of tourists traveling to Taiwan," spokesman An Fengshan said at a news conference on Wednesday. An is also the deputy director of the office's media affairs section.

"This year, the political situation in Taiwan and cross-Straits relations have changed, triggering concerns from tourism operators and tourists on the mainland. Thus, their willingness to travel to Taiwan has declined," he said.

The Taiwan tourism sector - the first to face an immediate hit if cross-Straits relations turn south - has seen a downturn in the number of mainland Chinese tourists, with tour bus companies, hotels, restaurants and travel agencies complaining about it.

Recent statistics released by the island's tourism bureau show that since the beginning of May the daily average of mainland Chinese tourists traveling in groups dropped by about 33 percent - or 1,650 people - from the 5,000 recorded over the same period last year.

Fu Kun-chi, head of Hualien county in Taiwan, has noticed the trend.

"The decline has affected cross-Straits relations and many other fields in Taiwan, including agriculture, tourism, family hotel businesses and restaurants," Fu told China Daily at the Straits Forum in Xiamen on Sunday.

Fu hopes that continuous communication across the Straits will attract a stable number of tourists from the mainland.

Tsai Ing-wen, the newly elected leader in Taiwan who took office on May 20, has not yet explicitly endorsed the 1992 Consensus, which states that the mainland and Taiwan are parts of one China.

"The political situation affects tourism the most, but it may also affect the macro economy," said Huang Hai-lung, president of the Overseas Chinese Association, based in Taipei.

"It requires wisdom to balance it," he said.

Statistics from the China National Tourism Administration show that 4.1 million people from the Chinese mainland traveled to Taiwan last year, accounting for about 40 percent of the island's tourists.

On average, each mainland tourist spent NT$7,770 ($240) in Taiwan each day.

An Baijie contributed to this story.