XIAMEN - Residents in 13 mainland cities will be eligible to visit Taiwan as individual tourists under a new cross-Strait agreement, the National Tourism Administration announced on Sunday.

The 13 cities include Shenyang, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Suzhou, Ningbo, Qingdao, Shijiazhuang, Changchun, Hefei, Changsha, Nanning, Kunming and Quanzhou, said Shao Qiwei, head of the administration.

Taiwan has previously opened individual tourism to 13 mainland cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Xiamen, Tianjin, Nanjing, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Jinan, Shenzhen, Fuzhou and Xi'an.

Before that the mainland residents could visit Taiwan only by joining tour groups.

A total of 1.97 million mainland tourists visited Taiwan in 2012, up from 55,000 in 2008, when Taiwan opened up its tourism market to mainland travelers.

Residents in all the mainland's 31 provincial-level regions can apply for group tours to the island, and 216 travel agencies are allowed to arrange such travels, according to Shao.

Shao said the mainland will soon increase the number of tourist agencies allowed to arrange travels to the island.