During the pandemic prevention and control period, in order to provide a safe living environment for visitors to Taichung, the Taichung City Government since March 24th launched the “Safe Hotels” certification to work with hotel operators to assure the health and safety of visitors staying in hotels. At present, 302 hotels applied for the certification and 250 were approved. Those certified operators needed to comply with the standard operating procedures to ensure pandemic prevention and control while Taichung City Government will dispatch personnel to inspect the places from time to time. Visitors can stay in hotels or guest houses certified with “Safe Hotels” and enjoy up to 70% discounts during their stay.
According to Director General of Taichung City Government, Lin Shiau-chi, hotels in Taichung City adopted flow control for pandemic prevention and control to minimize infection risks among the co-inhabitants. The “Safe Hotels” are not quarantine hotels and will not allow those under home quarantine and isolation to stay with them. They only serve general visitors and family members of those under home quarantine/isolation. For those under home quarantine and with difficulties due to work, student status or no permanent residency, the Taichung City Government set up “alternative home quarantine sites” for their accommodations. Additionally, the lineal relatives by blood or marital family members of those under home quarantine and isolation can receive a subsidy of NTD5,000 per household if they continuously stay in one safe hotel or a legitimate one for 14 days. They can apply for the subsidy within two years from the second day after checking out from the hotel. The time for subsidy provision can be traced back to March 19th this year.
Director General Lin said the launching of the safe hotel certification is to safeguard the health and safety of visitors via cooperation between the government and hotel operators. According to rules of disease prevention set by the central government, the Taichung City Government enacted the “Standard Operating Procedures and Points of Attention for Receiving Guests at Safe Hotels in Taichung during the Pandemic Prevention and Control Period.” Following the standard operating procedures to tighten the pandemic prevention and control, hotel operators will be certified with the “Safe Hotels” logo after being inspected and re-inspected and approved by the industrial associations and Bureau of Tourism and Travel, respectively. Hotel operators can post the logo at the entrance for easy identification by visitors. Standard Operating procedures of pandemic prevention and control include: 1. The standard operating procedures to receive guests; 2. Body temperature measurement of personnel before and after going off duty and wearing medical face masks at service areas as well as wearing protective equipment such as gloves and water-proof aprons; 3. regular provision of alcohol or alcohol based sanitizers in public spaces and cleaning object surfaces in constant contact with guests with sanitizer containing 75% alcohol and mixing bleach at the 1:100 ratio every day; and 4. using simple and non-excessive utensils and serving individual portion of meals; cleaning utensils used at high temperature for sanitization.
The Bureau of Tourism and Travel pointed out that since March 24th after accepting applications of “Safe Hotels” logo certification, 302 hotel operators filed applications and among them, 250 are now certified. Taichung City Government also works with hotel operators to provide discounts for guests staying with them. At present, 99 hotels have joined the program and provide discounts for general visitors. Among them, 79 offer up to 80% exclusive discounts to guests with long stay. Information of hotel discounts has been announced on the website of the Bureau of Tourism and Travel（https://travel.taichung.gov.tw/）.
During the pandemic prevention and control period, please visit the website of the Bureau of Tourism and Travel at https://travel.taichung.gov.tw/ for more hotel discount information.