>TAIPEI: THE Taiwan authorities are looking for three female Chinese tourists who went missing after leaving their hotel in a Taipei suburb, an immigration official said yesterday.
Mr Chiu Hsin-ying, of the National Immigration Agency, said the women, all in their 30s, had failed to return to their hotel in the Banchiao area after going out on Tuesday night.
"The women took their passports with them, but left their...luggage behind," he said.
Chinese visitors to Taiwan are required to travel in groups. However, they sometimes go off in search of employment on the island, where wages are much higher than on the mainland.
Mr Chiu said the women had come to Taiwan with a tour group from Thailand last week.
They did not arrive on the direct flights that left the mainland last weekend - the first such services between the two sides since China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949.
If they are not found by Sunday, the missing tourists will be banned from visiting the island for the next five years and the local agency which arranged their stay will face a fine of NT$600,000 (S$27,000).
Cases of vanishing visitors are not uncommon. There has been a string of such incidents in recent years.
In July 2004, 17 Chinese tourists had disappeared shortly after their arrival at the airport, triggering a spat between Beijing and Taipei. --AFP
