Travel agencies will be permitted to handle the 'OK to board' tag service for incoming Chinese tourists on behalf of air carriers from late May, travel industry sources said Sunday. The 'OK to board' tag is an expedient measure in international travel management. Air carriers sometimes allow passengers without visas to board their flights at the port of embarkation if they are told that these passengers would obtain their permits upon arrival at their destination. Under the arrangement, the air carrier serves as a guarantor for the pasengers to make the trip. The measure is taken only in emergency situation, but the practice is often employed in the case of Chinese tourists because of the complicated application process in their country for visits to Taiwan. The National Immigration Agency (NIA) agreed last week to allow travel agencies to handle the 'OK to board' tag service for inbound Chinese tourists on behalf of the airlines. If all goes smoothly, the Travel Agent Association of the Republic of China will begin to offer the service late this month, travel sources said. Under the arrangement, the association will set up a counter in the restricted area in the country's airports to handle the 'OK to board' service and hand over the entry permits, obtained from the NIA, to inbound Chinese tourists before they clear immigration. It is hoped that this will resolve the controversy that arose after some air carriers started in February to charge fees of NT$100 per person or NT$600 per tourist group for 'OK to board' service. Noting that about half of the 5,000 Chinese tourists arriving in Taiwan every day use 'OK to board' service, Hsu Kao-ching, secretary-general of the ROC Travel Agent Association, said the new arrangement will save local travel agencies quite a lot of money. He said the cost of providing the service, which will be about NT$400,000 a month, will be borne by the travel agencies at about NT$50 per passenger and will be less than the fees currently charged by the airlines. The new arrangement will be put in place by the end of May, subject to approval by the Civil Aeronautics Administration that manages the country's airports. Airlines offering 'OK to board' tag run the risk of being fined by aviation authorities for carrying passengers without proper travel documents. An official from the Tourism Bureau under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications warned that the new arrangement will not protect air carriers from being fined if they bring in passengers in violation of the regulations. According to government statistics, China replaced Japan as Taiwan's largest source of tourists in the first quarter of this year, with 340,000 arrivals. 