Ever since the discovery of the COVID cluster in the Evergreen Resort Hotel in Yilan''s Jiaoxi Township last week, hotels in the hot spring town have been hit by a wave of room cancellations. The 140 hotels in the area are usually fully booked during the Lunar New Year holiday, but this year, more than 40% of rooms are now vacant. Even the usually bustling night market downtown is empty, with not only the tourists, but the vendors themselves, staying home.

The Lunar New Year holiday has begun, but downtown Jiaoxi is practically a ghost town. The night market is usually throbbing with life, but tonight, half of the stalls are closed, not to mention the absence of tourists.

Vendor
There are very few, extremely few people. All the years I’ve been working here, I’ve never seen so few people. Many vendors are staying home. There’s no money to be made if you came out.

Vendor
There were a lot of people during the hot spring festival, but now it’s super empty. It’s pathetic. This New Year will be hard to celebrate. I can’t find a reason to celebrate it.

According to the local tourism association, only 50% to 60% of the rooms in the town’s 140 hotels are booked, a stark contrast to the usual sight of “no vacancy” signs during this time of year.

Even National Freeway No. 5, the main artery between Taipei and Yilan, is flowing smoothly, a rare sight at this time of year. As COVID rears its ugly head again, potential tourists have decided to stay home, and tourism operators can only grin and bear it, hoping for an early end to the crisis.