M’land “Technically Defers” Tourists’ Applications for Exit Permits to Taiwan

M’land “Technically Defers” Tourists’ Applications for Exit Permits to Taiwan

Source: United Daily News

March 8, 2016

Rumors have been circulating among domestic travel agencies that from March, the Mainland would introduce a tourism cap, reducing the number of Mainland Chinese tourists allowed to visit Taiwan. Yesterday, a Mainland netizen stated that his application for exit permit (the Taiwan Travel Permit for Mainland Residents 大通證) in Zhengzhou (鄭州), the capital of Henan Province (河南), was denied by Mainland authorities on the pretext that they “lacked blank permits.” The netizen said he had no other choice but to cancel his plan to visit Taiwan.

An official notice posted yesterday on the reception hall of Zhengzhou’s Exit and Entry Office read, “The Ministry of Public Security and departments of relevant ministries and agencies are proactively coordinating with each other to deal with the lack of blank exit permits for Mainland residents. Therefore, those who do not plan to travel to Taiwan in the near future, please defer your permit applications. Applications for travel permits to places other than Taiwan will not be affected.”

Another Henan netizen who declined to be named stated that more than one of his friends and family members had encountered this problem. Another netizen also said that in the past, after applying, it only took seven days for tour groups to obtain exit permits for Mainland residents, but now it took 15 days. According to the netizen, the application for exit permits for Mainland residents was “technically deferred.”

A state-owned travel agency in Henan said that they had received the notification from relevant authorities at 11 a.m. yesterday. According to the notification, those who had not received exit permits for Mainland residents would not be allowed to join any Taiwan package tours from March 20 to June 20; those who could not join Taiwan tours were advised to travel to places other than Taiwan.

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