Despite an increased daily cap on the number of mainland tourists to Taiwan, there are still a number of mainlanders who have to wait at least half a month to be granted a travel visa, Southeast Express reported on April 16.

To cope with the soaring number of visitors from the mainland, Taiwan has recently raised the daily ceiling for group tourists, from 5,000 to 8,000, and for individuals, from 3,000 to 4,000, during March 13 to May 31.

The move, however, is far from enough to meet the demand of mainland travelers.

Applications for group tours during the May Day holiday are now closed, as quotas have been filled. People can apply for visits in the second half of May at the earliest, the newspaper said, citing local travel agencies.

As for individual tourists who have to apply for a travel visa, or an entry permit to Taiwan, they have to queue in a long line as well, and can expect to get one around mid-May.

In essence, the door is closed for those who want to go to Taiwan in the spring and haven’t started applying for a travel visa, insiders said. They suggest people move their travel plans to June instead.

More than 250,000 individual tourists from the mainland have traveled to Taiwan from January to March. The number of group tourists exceeded 520,000 in the same period. And Taiwan saw a record number of mainland group visitors in March, sources said.

Currently, Taiwan is open for individual tours from 26 mainland cities, three from Fujian province: Fuzhou, Xiamen and Quanzhou.

Figures show that a total of 48,982 people traveled to Taiwan by way of the Fuzhou port in 2013, up by 18.6 percent from the previous year. And 14,968 of them were individual tourists.