TAIPEI, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- The Taipei Cross-Strait Travel Fair opened here Friday with tourist operators from Taiwan and the mainland eagerly participating, ambitious to drag in more customers from across the Strait.

　　Lin Tsao-qiong, who runs a farm hotel of 15 rooms at Miaoli County in central Taiwan, has a small booth at the fair, which has been held annually for five years in Taipei.

　　"The fair is a good place to meet travel agencies, especially those from the mainland," said the lady in her fifties.

　　Mainland tourists make up only a small portion of those that stay at Lin's family-run hotel. But she said there will probably be a lot of customers from the mainland in near future.

　　"It's likely that Taiwan will allow individual mainland tourists. If so, they will bring a lot of business," she said.

　　Taiwan has allowed mainland tourists to travel on package tours with a stay of the maximum 15 days since July 2008.

　　Chushang Township in central Taiwan's mountainous Nantou County has benefited from mainland tourists.

　　"Our town is on the way to the Sun and Moon Lake, a popular tourist site for mainland visitors. Mainland tourist groups usually stay for one or two hours before they go sightseeing at the lake," said Lin Yen-chen, a marketing official of Bamboo Culture Park Production Cooperative at Chushang.

　　The cooperative has also set up a booth at the travel fair to promote itself.

　　"We hope mainland tourists can stay longer and even overnight at our town. But this depends on travel agencies being able to provide more flexible package tours and mainland people being allowed to travel as individuals," Lin said.

　　Taiwan travel agencies, hotels, airline companies and travel associations have 516 booths at the four-day fair.

　　The number of mainland tourists to Taiwan is likely to reach 1.5 million this year and the annual number might top 3 million in next few years, said Shao Qiwei, president of the mainland-based Cross-Strait Tourism Exchange Association (CTEA), at the opening ceremony of the fair.

　　The mainland also sent a large delegation with about 1,200 members from 31 provincial divisions to the travel fair. They have operated 366 booths in an exhibition area of 8,000 square meters.

　　At the booth of central Henan Province, visitors watch Kung Fu performances and, at the booth of southwestern Guizhou Province, a singer of Miao ethnicity sings folk songs.

　　Xinjiang in northwest has brought traditional dancers to gain the attraction of visitors.

　　"Taiwan people are very much interested in Xinjiang. An average 500,000 Taiwan tourists visit Xinjiang annually," said Ma Rui, deputy secretary-general of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Tourism Association.

　　The association offers travel packages for various attractions, such as the package tours that go along the old Silk Road and into the snow-capped mountains.

　　"We hope to be able to introduce tourists to every aspect of Xinjing's beauty," he said.

　　The region's tourism business was affected by the July 5 riot last year, he said. "But now there are not safety problems for travelers in Xinjiang."