Taipei, July 4, 2008 (CENS)--The first Chinese plane for direct cross-Taiwan Strait flight touched down on Taoyuan International Airport at 8:06 a.m. this morning, signifying the onset of a new era for cross-Strait exchanges.

The plane belonging to China Southern Airlines took off from Guangzhou at 6:30 a.m. and took only one and a half hours to reach Taoyuan, with 232 Chinese tourists on board. It was flown by Liu Shaoyung, chairman of China Southern Airlines. The airport administration sprayed water on the plane as a gesture of welcome.

After alighting the plane, Liu expressed his pleasure taking part in the historical event, hoping, though, the cross-Strait flight can take a straight route in the future, rather than the existing roundabout one.

Shortly afterwards, a plane of Xiamen Airlines with 117 Chinese tourists on board landed at Songshan Airport, where the passengers were met with the welcome of Chinese dragon- and lion-dancing performance.

On the other direction, an airplane of China Airlines took off from Taoyuan International Airport heading for Shanghai directly at 7:30 a.m., followed by anplane of Uni Air taking off from Songshan Airport at 8:00 a.m., also bound for Shanghai.

Twenty-six Chinese groups with 753 members are expected to arrive in
Taiwan today (July 4), inaugurating visits of Chinese tourists to Taiwan via direct cross-Strait flights.

Mao Chi-kuo, minister of transportation and communications, expressed high hope for Chinese tourists to give the languid domestic tourism industry a shot in the arm. He noted that at 1,000 persons a day, the visits of Chinese tourists can bring NT$20 billion of tourism revenue to the island, which would hit NT$60 billion at the maximum daily amount of 3,000 persons.

He noted that the government will negotiate with the Chinese counterpart to increase the number of weekly flights, up from 18 round-trip flights each from both sides now, after the Beijing Olympics, so as to accommodate increased passengers for the direct flights.

He urged local tourist firms to extend their offering from round-island travel to theme travel and fixed-spot travel, adding that municipal governments and tourist-site operators should improve the packaging of their tourism resources, so as to augment the appeal to Chinese tourists.

The opening up of the visits of Chinese tourists to Taiwan is expected to rectify the gross imbalance in cross-Strait travel. Over the past two decades, the number of Taiwanese visitor-trips to China has topped 47 million, compared with 1.6 million Chinese visitor-trips to Taiwan.

(by Philip Liu)