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進入《TAIPEI TIMES》 Tourism relief not enough: trade group
From second left, Travel Quality Assurance Association deputy legal affairs director Chen Yi-hsuan, president Tony Hsu and spokesman Lee Chi-yueh hold a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Photo courtesy of the Travel Quality Assurance Association
LOOKING FOR MORE: Last year, travel agencies only had to contend with losses from fewer foreign travelers, but this year domestic tours have also been suspended, it said
By Cheng Wei-chi and Jake Chung / Staff reporters, with staff writer
A tourism industry group yesterday criticized the government’s COVID-19 special relief funding for tourism, saying that the government had allocated less money for the industry than last year, despite a worse outbreak situation.
Travel Quality Assurance Association president Tony Hsu （許禓哲） told an online news conference that the nation’s tourism industry has suspended all foreign group tours indefinitely due to the pandemic.
Most tourism agencies have been able to maintain basic operations, but with domestic tourism also suspended as of last month and with less relief funding than last year, the association, which represents more than 3,926 travel agencies, has received complaints from its members, Hsu said.
The Executive Yuan’s relief budget this year allotted NT$694 million （US$25 million） to subsidize travel agency operation costs and employee wages for May through July. Subsidies granted to travel agencies for suspended tours totaled NT$154 million, or NT$10,000 per tour group, for a maximum of eight groups per travel agency.
Association deputy legal affairs director Chen Yi-hsuan （陳怡璇） said that last year’s relief funding provided NT$300,000 per travel agency, adding that she did not understand why the subsidies would decrease amid a worsening outbreak situation.
The allotted subsidies are worse than the package the Ministry of Economic Affairs （MOEA） presented, she said, adding that the Ministry of Transportation and Communications （MOTC）, which oversees the Tourism Bureau, should seek to understand the tourism ecosystem.
Association spokesman Lee Chi-yueh （李奇嶽） said that subsidies for group tours should not be a fixed sum, but should be based on the size of the group tour being suspended.
Corporate tours, government agency events, resident activities and school graduation trips are the four main categories for domestic group tours, with student and government agency tours often including hundreds of people per group, leading to major losses for travel agencies that are forced to suspend the tours, Lee said.
Travel agencies, as a rule, often do not ask for deposits from large tour groups, which prevents the companies from seeking subsidies, because they cannot show that they returned customer deposits, Lee said.
The association said that the MOTC should match the MOEA subsidies, offering a flat NT$10,000 per employee and from NT$10,000 to NT$50,000 based on the size of a group, for losses incurred due to suspended group tours.
The MOTC should allow travel agencies to apply for subsidies for all operations since the nation entered a level 3 COVID-19 alert instead of setting a hard cutoff date of June 15, the association said.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
