From March 15 to April 2 the island’s entry and exit authority has raised the daily limit from 4,311 to 6,000. This is to allow for the traditional Tomb-Sweeping Day which falls on April 5 this year. The day, also known as the Qingming Festival, is an occasion for the Chinese to remember the dead.
The Taiwan entry and exit authority adopted the same temporary adjustment for the Spring Festival to cope with about 35,000 Mainland tourists in nine days.
In 2008, the government made Tomb-Sweeping Day an official holiday in response to public appeals, making it a three-day holiday together with the adjacent weekend.
CRI.English.com reported about 606,000 tourists from the Chinese Mainland visited the island in 2009, according to the Mainland-based Cross-Strait Tourism Exchange Association, which estimated Mainland spending in Taiwan could reach up to $1.3 billion.