2011-06-28 15:07

Tourists from Xiamen, Fujian province, accept gift packages from the Taipei city government as they arrive at Taipei's Songshan airport on June 28, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]

TAIPEI - Dozens of reporters carrying cameras and microphones eagerly waited at one of the Taipei Songshan Airport's exits while a number of satellite-equipped news-gathering vehicles stood by outside the airport on Tuesday.

These journalists were not waiting for a celebrity. They were instead waiting for the first group of individual mainland tourists to visit the island after the recent lifting of a travel ban.

A total of 282 mainland tourists are expected to arrive in Taiwan from the mainland cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Xiamen on Tuesday as the first tourists to travel to the island as individuals.

Lin Shifa, a 58-year-old tourist from Xiamen, was shocked to face reporters and camera crews as he entered the airport's arrival hall.

"In addition to sightseeing, we want to meet up with my uncle, who lives in the city of Xinbei," said Lin, who is traveling with his 91-year-old mother.

"We never planned to visit Taiwan before because the tour packages that were available did not allow us to arrange our own schedules," he said.

Mainland tourists have only been permitted to travel to Taiwan in groups since July 2008, when a full travel ban was struck down. The ban on individual tourists was itself lifted on June 8, but only for residents of the cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Xiamen.

Zhu Hangyu, a 26-year-old resident of Xiamen, plans to stay in Taiwan for three days. She is particularly excited to check out the Taipei Palace Museum and one of the island's night markets.

"I hate traveling in tour packages. You have to get up early and strictly follow their schedule. That's why I waited until now to visit Taiwan," Zhu said.

Taipei's tourism department held a welcoming ceremony at the airport to receive the tourists, gifting them with souvenirs and coupons for local hotels and spas.

"We expect that more than 170,000 mainland individual tourists will visit Taipei annually. If each of them stays in Taipei for two days, they should bring in at least 2.4 billion New Taiwan dollars ($84 million) in revenue," Chao Hsin-ping, the city's tourism chief, said at the ceremony.

Chao said that traveling on an individual basis will allow mainland tourists to spend more time meeting local people and get to know the island better.

The island's tourism industry is expected to profit in a big way from the new travel opportunities, as individual travelers are often younger and more willing to spend their money.

E-go, one of the island's largest car rental services, has just spent 70 million NT dollars to purchase 30 new mini-buses.

"More than 20 clients from Beijing and Shanghai rented cars and mini-buses from us today," said Hsu Hao-yuan, E-go's general manager.

He is very optimistic about the business potential that has been unlocked by the lifting of the individual travel ban.

Unlike tourists in tour packages, who usually take larger buses, individual tourists prefer to rent smaller, more flexible vehicles. Since they can't drive themselves in Taiwan, many of them choose to employ the services of local drivers, Hsu said.

"I expect my company's revenues to increase by at least 15 percent with the increased business coming from individual tourists," he said.