No travel warning for Chinese tourists- tourism association

The China-based Cross-Strait Tourism Exchange Association rebutted Saturday media reports that China had issued a travel alert for Taiwan after 21 Chinese tourists were still unaccounted for in northeastern Taiwan following landslides caused by Typhoon Megi.

The association's Taipei office director, Fan Gueishan, said the Beijing-based National Tourism Administration only issued a reminder to all Taiwan-bound Chinese tourists to pay close attention to the movement of the typhoon and to make "reasonable" arrangements in order to minimize any possible typhoon-related harm.

He stressed that contrary to the reports, the administration had not listed Taiwan as a travel warning area.

According to the Tourism Bureau, Fan arrived a day earlier in Yilan County, the worst-hit area, to meet with the Chinese tourists evacuated from the landslide-struck Suhua Highway. As of Saturday afternoon, a 21-member tour group from Guangdong Province, including one Taiwanese bus driver and a Chinese tour leader from another group, were still unaccounted for. All the other 272 Chinese tourists stranded on the highway had been rescued.

Sourced=focustaiwan