At Beijing Capital International Airport, a 81-year-old woman is ready for her trip to Taiwan with her family, June 28, 2011, in Beijing. [Photo/Xinhua]

BEIJING - About 290 travellers left the mainland for Taiwan on Tuesday as the first group of individual tourists to travel to the region from the mainland since a ban on individual tourists was lifted.

Sixty-one tourists aboard Air China Flight CA185, which took off in Beijing at 8:35 a.m. Tuesday, are expected to arrive in Taipei at 11:45 a.m.

Tourists from China's financial center of Shanghai and Xiamen, a port city in southeast China's Fujian Province, also left for the island via planes and boats on Tuesday.

The mainland-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) and its Taiwan counterpart, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) exchanged written documents on Friday to confirm the schedule for a pilot travel program for mainland individual tourists.

According to the agreement, the initial phase of the travel program will apply to residents of the cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Xiamen.

Previously, tourists were only allowed to travel in groups and had to follow preplanned tour routes.

The island became a popular travel destination for mainland tourists after Taiwan lifted a travel ban for mainland group visitors in July 2008.

The number of Chinese mainland tourists traveling to Taiwan in groups totaled 2.34 million as of the end of May, bringing an estimated 110 billion New Taiwan dollars (3.8 billion U.S. dollars) to the island.

Ma Zhiqiang, general manager of the Xiamen Chunhui International Travel Service, said young and middle-aged people have been more interested in the individual tours.

"Young backpackers don't like to be restricted to group tour schedules, and they prefer to avoid crowded scenic spots and choose personalized itineraries," Ma said.

Elderly tourists prefer individual tours because the individual tour schedules allow them to spend more time with their relatives, said Chen Lianbao, an executive with the Xiamen C&D International Travel Service.

In 1949, the Kuomintang Party (KMT), led by Chiang Kai-shek, was defeated in a civil war by the Communist Party of China (CPC), which later founded the People's Republic of China. Many KMT members fled to Taiwan in the aftermath of the conflict, causing many families to become split up.

The Chinese mainland and Taiwan have been estranged ever since. The two sides resumed transportation and trade exchanges in the 1980s, but visits between separated relatives were still rare at that time.

Lu Ziping and his family are among the tourists leaving for Taiwan on Tuesday. They said they will be visiting their uncle in Taiwan for the first time ever.

"It's been very convenient to apply for the individual tour packages. Now, we can visit our relatives as much as we want," said Lu.

Industry insiders believe that the launch of the individual travel program will serve to boost cross-Strait tourism.