More than 1,000 mainland tourists arrived by train in Pingtan on Sept 23 ahead of their tour to Taiwan on the Haixia, a high-speed passenger ferry sailing between Pingtan and Taichung.

The tourists were split in two groups for the ferry trip – and they all reached Taiwan within a few days.

The trip was organized by the China Railway Travel League, which signed a cooperation deal with Pingtan for a rail, water, and bus transportation link to facilitate the mainland tourists' Taiwan-bound travel.

The China Railway Travel League handled more than 800,000 tourists and more than 2,000 tourist trains last year.

A China Railway Corp official said that integrated railway-sea transportation service has great market prospects.

Pingtan - located only 68 nautical miles from Hsinchu, 88 from Taichung, and 92 from Taipei - is the closest point on the mainland to Taiwan.

It currently takes about two and a half hours to reach either Taichung or Taipei.

Pingtan will add a new marine route to Taipei starting on October 8, meaning that residents of the Chinese mainland will have more destination options.

Li Huajun, a manager of a local travel agency, said that the entire railway system is expected to be upgraded and the rail-sea connection will help boost Pingtan's tourism industry as well as the local economy.

Edited by Chen Zhilin and Niva Whyman