Beijing (CNA) – Chinese travelers who participated in a competition hosted by Taiwan Strait Tourism Association (TSTA) gathered in Beijing Saturday to attend an award ceremony and sharetheir travel experiences.

The Beijing office of the Taiwan-based association, set up by the Mainland Affairs Council in 2006, held the online competition over four months from March 2 to promote independent travel in Taiwan, with prize money totaling 230,000 Chinese yuan (US$36,015).

The winners were announced June 29, with Wang Shan and Song Tao taking the gold award of 100,000 yuan with “Kenting Slow Living,” their travel notes on the southern Taiwan beach resort area.

Silver awards of 30,000 yuan went to Wu Dan and Cheng Si’s “100 postcards of Touring Taiwan by Bike” and Cai Shanna and Yu Rong’s “Searching for Taiwan’s Indigenous Tribes.”

Chi Tianyin and Hsu Yuan took a bronze award of 20,000 yuan with their submission on gourmet food and medical tourism, while Guo Cheng and Cai Na also received a bronze award for a piece on traveling on the Taipei metro.

Song, a photographer, said many of his friends had recommended that he visit Taiwan and that he felt inspired to visit the island after watching the Taiwanese blockbuster Cape No. 7.

Upon arriving in Kenting he was very attracted by the beautiful scenery and friendly people, and was deeply impressed by the local concept of wildlife conservation.

In addition, the many photos of scenic areas in Kenting he shot have been made into a collection of 100 postcards to attract more Chinese visitors to Taiwan.

Chi, who came to Taiwan for a health check, said he was impressed by the friendliness of the doctors and the thoroughness of their examinations, which he described as being in stark contrast from medical services in China.

Hsu, who is Chi’s wife, said her impression of Taiwan was one of “cleanliness” in which the “environment, air, food and people’s hearts are all very pure.”

Yang Ruey-tzong, TSTA’s Beijing office director, said that since Taiwan relaxed its Chinese tourism regulations in 2008, most Chinese people’s impressions of Taiwan’s tourist sites have been limited to Alishan and Sun Moon Lake, even though there are many other places in the country worth visiting.

He said the competition, in which 60 visitors compiled blogs in documenting their experiences, was designed to encourage Chinese travelers to find some of these beautiful scenic sites by themselves.

(By Tsai Su-jung and C.J. Lin)
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