It's been just under a month since China decided to allow tourists to return to Taiwan's outlying Kinmen Islands—ending a roughly five-year ban. For many Kinmen residents, the lack of visitors took a heavy toll during that time. Is the lifting of the travel ban making a difference?
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00:00It's a slow morning for this shop on Taiwan's outlying Kinmen Islands, with only one Taiwanese
00:10tour group here to try its traditional noodles.
00:17The store used to be much busier, with customers coming not just from Taiwan, but also from
00:22China.
00:23But around five years ago, because of COVID-19 and cross-strait tensions, Chinese tourists
00:29stopped coming to Kinmen, meaning this shop went from seeing over a hundred Chinese customers
00:33a day to none at all.
00:42Kinmen was a battleground decades ago when Chinese Communist forces fought against the
00:46Nationalist Army that fled to Taiwan.
00:49The islands remained on the front lines of simmering tensions for decades, but it was
00:53also one of the first parts of Taiwan where Chinese people could travel directly.
00:58Although Kinmen is governed by Taiwan, it's geographically much closer to China.
01:03At its closest point, it's only around 3.5 kilometers away.
01:09In 2001, limited transportation, trade, and postal connections, called the Three Mini
01:14Links, made it possible for Chinese tourists to start visiting Kinmen.
01:19Over the years, the number of Chinese people coming to Kinmen grew, peaking at around 400,000
01:25in 2019.
01:27But after the Three Mini Links were shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, that
01:32number dropped to zero.
01:35Kinmen relies on tourism as one of its main sources of income, and in 2019, Chinese tourists
01:41brought an estimated 90 million U.S. dollars.
01:44So when they stopped coming, many businesses here struggled.
01:51This fried chicken shop lost around 70% of its income.
02:09In August, Kinmen officials went to China to try and ease travel restrictions.
02:14And finally, in late September, China's government announced tourists from its Fujian province
02:19could return.
02:20But a few weeks later, only around 400 have come, not enough to make any real difference
02:26for many businesses.
02:28Some local officials say that's because the process for Chinese tourists to get here is
02:32more complicated than it was before the pandemic, requiring them to apply for a permit in advance,
02:38involving a travel agency and multiple government offices.
02:41From where I'm standing in Kinmen, you can visibly see the Chinese city of Xiamen right
02:45behind me.
02:46It's that close.
02:48Chinese tourists can cross these waters in around 30 minutes to an hour by ferry.
02:52Because of its closeness, many in Kinmen feel that tourism from China is their most realistic
02:57option.
02:58Tourists are the closest to us.
02:59We don't want to go far.
03:00If they don't come, we don't want to go in, so how are we going to survive?
03:05Shen Xiuhua, a sociologist who researches Kinmen, says it's also China's large population
03:11that people feel could benefit business.
03:13Most people in Kinmen imagine the economic development to be similar to the Chinese market.
03:19It's hard to imagine that there are so many people coming from other places at once.
03:23But that's how close Xiamen is.
03:26Kinmen's leaders believe the county's history has helped to get through the tough times
03:30of the past few years.
03:31People in Kinmen used to have a hard time.
03:33They know how to survive in the most difficult situation.
03:41Some Kinmen businesses that were affected by the absence of Chinese tourists found alternative
03:53ways to make money, selling their products differently or creating new ones altogether.
04:01This Chinese medicine shop, which has been around for nearly 200 years, started selling
04:05its products online during the pandemic.
04:24Some also used this time to get ready for when Chinese tourists could come back, like
04:29shifting to online payments instead of cash.
04:32But there were also businesses in Kinmen that weren't really affected at all.
04:39Wang Ling has started several businesses here, including a guest house, a tea house that
04:43has since closed, and this gift shop.
04:46But most of her customers are from Taiwan and other countries, not from China.
04:50She thinks Kinmen should look beyond Chinese tourists.
05:03And Kinmen is looking for these kinds of opportunities to expand tourism.
05:07One local Kinmen official said he's thought about collaborating with Chinese officials
05:11to market Kinmen as a day trip that foreign tourists could take while they're in Xiamen.
05:16While many in Kinmen are holding onto hope that throngs of Chinese tourists will soon
05:20return, some on these small islands are looking farther to attract interest from other corners
05:26of the world.
05:28Ryan Wu, Peachy Zhuang, and Cadence Cuaranta for Taiwan Plus.