More residents can visit Taiwan on individual tour

Residents from 11 more Chinese mainland cities can now visit Taiwan on individual tours, starting from April 15, authorities announced on Wednesday.

The fifth batch of approved cities are Haikou, Hohhot, Lanzhou, Yinchuan, Changzhou, Zhoushan, Huizhou, Weihai, Longyan, Guilin and Xuzhou, according to the Association for Tourism Exchange Across the Taiwan Straits.

Since the first pilot scheme in 2011, residents from 47 mainland cities have been given permission to enter Taiwan on individual tours.

The 11 newly-added cities have large populations, convenient transportation, and sound economies for Taiwan-bound tourism, the association said in a statement.

The association also approved 48 travel agencies to handle the tours. So far, 311 travel agencies got the permission.

As of February, mainlanders had made nearly 2.19 million individual tour visits to Taiwan. In 2014 the number was nearly 1.18 million, up 125.8 percent year on year, making up about 37 percent of the entire number of tourists visiting the island last year.