Taiwan new tourism development

And Friday sees another landmark development in cross-Straits ties with more than 700 tourists from 5 mainland cities arriving in Taiwan. This is one of the biggest breakthroughs in just over 2 decades, when Taiwan residents were allowed to visit the mainland in 1987. Guan Xin examines the development of tourism between the two sides.

As early as 1979, the standing committee of the National People's Congress released a paper urging communication across the Taiwan Straits to facilitate mutual exchange. And after years of effort, a dialogue between the two sides was held in Singapore in 1993, marking the start of the normalization and systematization of a two-way opening.

In May 2005, the central government started talks to lay the groundwork for mainland tourists to visit Taiwan. Tourism industries on both sides organized 6 technical negotiations in 2006 and 2007, and reached consensus on many specific issues. The opening of Taiwan tourism to the mainland has achieved concrete progress. However, it was still hampered by Taiwan's former regional leader.

The newly elected Taiwan regional leader Ma Ying-Jeou now has a positive attitude towards the opening up of Taiwan's tourism. He proposed to realize the target this July. The cross-Straits talks on June 13th finalized the deal. The heads of the mainland-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits and the Taiwan-based Straits Exchange Foundation signed the landmark agreement. This opened up travel for mainland tourists to Taiwan, ushering in a new era of cross-Straits communication.

Airlines gear up for weekend service across Taiwan

The first flight from the mainland to Taiwan took off from Guangzhou in Southern Guangdong Province at 6:30 am local time marking the start of the much-anticipated weekend chartered flights.

A woman holding her baby waits for boarding a plane at Gaoqi International Airport in Xiamen, a coastal city in southeast China's Fujian Province, June 5, 2008. Xiamen Airlines' Flight MF881 carrying 167 passengers flew from Xiamen to Taipei in southeast China's Taiwan Province on June 5, kicking off the charter flights across the Taiwan Straits for the Chinese  traditional Duanwu Festival, or the Dragon Boat Festival,  which falls on June 8 this year.(Xinhua/Jiang Kehong File Photo)

And it's already touched down the flight operated by China Southern Airlines arrived in Taipei at ten-past-eight in the morning. Six airlines from the mainland and five from Taiwan will run 18 return flights on Friday.

The first flight from Taiwan to the mainland took off from Taoyuan Airport near Taipei at half-past-three Friday morning. The flight, operated by Taiwan-based Mandarin Airlines, was headed for Nanjing in eastern Jiangsu Province.