(WSJ) Like other residents of this tiny Taiwanese archipelago, a 30-minute ferry ride from neighboring China, shopkeeper Chang Hung is trying to make the switch from fighting the mainland to wooing it.
The 62-year-old used to run an inn that served the large military garrison stationed here, when the island was the front line of efforts by Taiwan's Nationalist government to keep Communist China's forces at bay. Most of those troops are gone now, and Kinmen is being overrun by thousands of mainland Chinese—toting not rifles and ammunition but cameras and purses.
Last year, more than 750,000 tourists descended on the islands, population 128,000—with travel from the mainland accounting for nearly a third, and growing at a double-digit pace.
Kinmen is where mainland tourist-packed TransAsia Airways Flight 235 was headed before it crashed shortly after takeoff from Taipei last week, killing at least 40 people.
"Mainland visitors haggle even over the cheapest of items," grumbles Ms. Chang, who four years ago opened a cluttered stand in front of a military memorial-turned-tourist landmark, selling snacks and trinkets to visiting tour groups.
Kinmen's transformation from military outpost to travel hot spot underscores how Taiwan is increasingly riding a boom in business from China. The process started in 2001 when Taiwan began to open direct trade and transportation links between some outer islands and the closest mainland province of Fujian, separated from Kinmen by a sliver of water just two kilometers wide.
Four airlines fly in and out of Kinmen, including TransAsia. TransAsia operated two dozen flights a day between Kinmen and other Taiwanese destinations like Taipei and Kaohsiung before the crash—many catering to mainland visitors on cheap tours that start or end with ferry rides that link the island to Xiamen city in Fujian.
More than half of the 53 passengers aboard Flight 235 were from Fujian.
Kinmen officials say they don't expect the tragedy to derail the boom in mainland travel to the islands, a Cold War-era bulwark that once hosted 100,000 troops in a tense and often deadly face-off against Communist forces on the mainland.
For decades, Nationalist troops on Kinmen, also known as Quemoy, withstood small incursions and regular shelling by mainland forces, including a massive six-week artillery barrage in 1958 that rained nearly 500,000 rounds on the island.
The demilitarization of the archipelago in the 1990s and warming relations with China prompted the island to court tourists instead, initially from Taiwan and more recently the mainland.
Local authorities oversaw a proliferation in duty-free stores to pull in brand-savvy consumers; simplified visa processes for mainland visitors; and expanded marketing efforts in Taiwan and China.
They touted Kinmen's main draws: offerings of military and cultural history, natural scenery, Kaoliang liquor, as well as cheap shopping.
Though roughly 70% of the tourists visiting Kinmen are still from Taiwan, the share of mainland Chinese has ballooned from the low single digits of the early 2000s. Last year, the island welcomed 220,000 mainland visitors, up 41% from the previous year.
Across Taiwan, China is now the biggest source of tourists, with nearly four million visitors last year.
Officials on Kinmen are eager to make the island a bigger draw. Among their proposals is a new military-themed zone centering on a decommissioned navy vessel that once fought Communist warships off Kinmen in the 1950s.
At the Guningtou Battle Musuem in northwestern Kinmen, where Nationalist defenders routed a Communist assault force in 1949, scores of mainland visitors spent part of a recent weekend touring
wartime exhibits and coastal fortifications that still line the beaches.
"Those are American tanks," an elderly Chinese tourist told his half-dozen companions as they studied a pair of U.S.-made M3 light tanks that flank the museum's main entrance. "That's why the
Nationalists could win."
The island's hotel capacity—about 4,000 people a day—already faces strains during busy weekends.
Local officials hope to add enough rooms over the next two to three years to accommodate about 10,000 people daily.
But Kinmen also faces constraints in its efforts to draw mainland tourists, particularly the travel restrictions China places on citizens seeking to visit Taiwan. While Kinmen recently introduced visa-on-arrival for mainland visitors, paperwork requirements on the Chinese side mean takeup has been slow, Kinmen tourism chief Austin Wang said.
Kinmen officials had planned to discuss proposals for easier travel rules with Zhang Zhijun, head of Beijing's Taiwan Affairs Office, at a meeting in Kinmen originally scheduled for Feb. 7-8, but the Chinese official postponed his trip in the wake of the TransAsia crash.
"These are political issues related to [Taiwan-mainland China] relations, which are hard to predict," Mr. Wang said.
Not all islanders are pleased with the influx of mainland visitors, since the benefits from the travel boom have been uneven.
"Kinmen has changed a lot since opening up to mainland visitors, but not always for the better," said a tour-bus driver in his early 30s, who gave his name only as Wang.
"Property prices and storefront rentals have gone up drastically," he said. "It's also now harder for us to make a living with travel agencies slashing prices and margins to compete with each other."
Ms. Chang, the shopkeeper, says she accepts that Kinmen's growing reliance on mainland tourists, even if she herself hasn't benefited much.
"I run this shop to pass time, rather than to make a living," she said. "There are others who are doing well, and that's good for us as a whole."
Source: Wall Street Journal
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