Taiwan airport offers “Pretend to travel abroad” tour amid pandemic

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SONGSHAN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, TAIPEI, TAIWAN - 2020/01/22: A view of Taipei's Songshan International Airport logo.Taiwan ??? s officials ordered to stop sending and receiving groups of tourists to / from Wuhan, China, over the coronavirus outbreak. The entry permits for 459 visitors from the Chinese city of Wuhan were canceled by the National Immigration Agency (NIA) on Wednesday (Jan. 22). The groups were planning to arrive in Taiwan by late January. (Photo by Walid Berrazeg / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images)

(CNN) - With planes on the ground and most tourism paralyzed by the coronavirus pandemic, a Taiwanese airport has found a unique solution to help people quench their desire to travel.

Taipei Songshan Airport will give 90 people the opportunity to tour their airport and relive the experience of going through immigration, boarding a plane, and then disembarking and returning home.

"You can't leave (Taiwan), so pretend to go abroad in Songshan," said a flyer posted on the airport's website.

Songshan is the smaller of Taipei's two international airports and is located in the city center, next to the Keelung River.

International tourism has effectively stopped in most parts of the world as countries close their borders to try to prevent outbreaks of the new coronavirus, which has already infected more than 7 million people worldwide.

Some countries are already looking for innovative ways to boost their travel industries. In one example, Australia and New Zealand are working to organize a "travel bubble" between the two countries.

Taiwan closed its borders in March amid the growing coronavirus pandemic, and foreigners are still prohibited from visiting the island.

READ : Traveling in the era of the coronavirus: these are the new global security protocols

According to the flyer, there will be three tours of Songshan Airport on July 2, 4 and 7.

Chih-ching Wang, deputy director of Taipei Songshan Airport, said the tours will last half a day and allow visitors to experience what it would be like to go through migration and then board the plane, followed by re-entering the country through immigration.

"People who have not had the opportunity to take international flights on Songshan (can) take this opportunity to experiment and learn more about the boarding process and relevant service facilities," said Wang.

Wang said the participants will be allowed to board a plane as if they were boarding a journey, after which they will disembark and return via immigration.

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Visitors will also be "the first to experience the new facilities at the airport," authorities said, adding that visitors can "complete missions" and take home "exclusive and mysterious gifts."

Taiwan