Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council has announced that it will reopen self-guided tours for residents from Hong Kong and Macau on 20 February.
At a press conference on Tuesday morning, the council explained that, from 9am on February 20, residents of Hong Kong and Macau can reapply online for self-guided tour to Taiwan.
Taiwan has strictly enforced its immigration regulations since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. It had previously reopened tours from Macau and Hong Kong but put them on hold in November due to the outbreak of COVID-19 across mainland China and Macau.
“Considering the stability of the pandemic in Taiwan, after a comprehensive assessment, the temporary permission for Hong Kong and Macau residents to travel to Taiwan will be reinstated from 9:00am on February 20,” the council said.
Taiwan and Macau have close tourism ties, with Taiwan visitors being the third largest source of tourists to Macau before the epidemic, with more than 1 million Taiwanese visitors to Macau in 2019. The number of visitors from Macau to Taiwan in 2019 was nearly 160,000.