There was a seminar on travel possibilities for Taiwan, in Pingtan county, Fujian province, on China's southeast coast, on April 10, which attracted representatives of the China Railway Travel League, Joint Association of Tourist Buses of Taiwan, and travel agencies from the mainland and Taiwan, who are exploring the cross-Straits tour business, the Fujian Daily has reported.

One of the proposals that got the most attention was a seamless link, using rail, water and bus transportation, and the China Railway Travel League signed a related cooperation agreement with the Pingtan administration. In commenting on this, Peng Jianhua, a China Railway Corp official, said, "The China Railway Travel League handled groups with more than 800,000 tourists and more than 2,000 tourist trains last year, so, it's got a good advantage."

Peng went on to point out how an integrated railway-sea transportation service has great prospects.

Pingtan is the closest point on the mainland to Taiwan, only 68 nautical miles from Hsinchu, 88 from Taichung, and 92 from Taipei, which obviously gives it a unique advantage that needs to be made great use of, commented Gong Qinggai, the administrative head of Pingtan.

"It only takes 2.5 hours from Pingtan to Taichung, so, it's like intercity transport. From Pingtan to Taiwan is just like going from Fuzhou to Quanzhou, which a popular transportation line," Gong continued, noting that Pingtan is planning a lot of big tourism programs to build itself into a cross-Straits logistics hub.

The mainland's first high-speed passenger liner between Pingtan and Taiwan, the Haixia, was launched on Nov 30, 2011. A second one, the Lina, between Pingtan and Taipei, is expected to go into service this May.

"The number of mainlanders going to Taiwan in 2013 is expected to exceed 2.5 million," said Wang Yanping, chairman of the Fujian Guohang Ocean Shipping (Group) Co, "And, we're hoping that vehicles from the mainland and Taiwan will be able to go back and forth on the two ships."

Edited by Chen Zhilin and Roger Bradshaw