The mainland had become the first choice of travel and investment for Taiwanese people and the promotion of tourism was the common wish of people and tourism operators across the Straits, said Sun.

The number of Taiwanese visiting the mainland was rising every year, but mainland people had to wait in vain to be allowed to freely travel to Taiwan, Sun said at the opening of a tourism fraternity meeting across the Straits.

He said people across the Taiwan Straits had to make a detour to either Hong Kong or Macao in visiting each other, which not only wasted precious time and money, but also seriously affected normal trade and tourism.

To realize uninhibited tourism and the "three direct links" as soon as possible was the common wish across the Straits.

In the past year, mainland tourism achieved remarkable progress despite a global slow down. The mainland received 97.91 million inbound travelers, up 9.99 percent over the previous year. While the outbound mainland travelers numbered 16.6 million, up 36.84 percent.

China had become a fastest-growing and one of the top new tourist source nations in Asia. There was no reason why Taiwan should not share in the growing number of outbound mainland travelers.

He said people across the Straits were all Chinese and tourism operators should pursue cooperation and exchanges.

Over 1,200 mainland tourism operators and nearly 300 from Taiwan attended the two-day meeting, which is aimed at strengthening mutual understanding across the Straits as well as promote mutual exchanges and cooperation.

(People's Daily February 26, 2003)