Despite her poor showing for after only 48 days as the first female Minister of Economic Affairs, Christine Tsung's (
Tsung, a crony of President Chen Shui-bian, was named chairwoman of Taipei's troubled Grand Hotel (圓山飯店) on Saturday.
"Her world vision and expertise in business management will greatly help the hotel expand its international clientele," Grand Hotel's general manager Jack Niu (
"We look forward to taking advantage of her good governmental resources and interpersonal relationships in bringing in business," said Hu Heng-li (胡恆麗), a spokesperson for the hotel's union.
"Her performance at China Airlines Co (
Replacing Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫), Tsung's appointment is still pending approval from the hotel's board, which is expected to meet at the end of this month, Niu said.
The hotel's current strategy aims to attract organizers of international conferences, upper-crust clientele and leisure travelers from central and southern Taiwan.
Founded in 1952, the Grand Hotel was listed in the 1950s among the top 10 hotels in the world. Fierce competition from the entry of international hotels in combination with poor management by bungling bureaucrats, have cost the Taipei landmark its dominant market position.
Raking in a measly NT$1.6 billion in revenues last year, this year's revenues have, so far, dropped by nearly 20 percent, Hu said.
Average room-occupancy rates are at 70 percent according to hotel officials.
Righting the semi-state-run hotel's sagging business, outdated image, inefficient management and mediocre service will be major challenges for Tsung. But before any improvements can be made, Tsung's first challenge will be implementing internal reforms that will educate and motivate hotel employees to improve their performance, pundits said.
"It's important that she befriends hotel employees and earn their support in making changes," Ta Shee's Chou said.
Tsung should take advantage of the hotel's union to act as a bridge between upper management and employees, he said.
Citing the hotel's former general manager Stanley Yen (
Betty Yen (
One such problem Stanley Yen faced was an inflexible year-end-bonus agreement, which is written into the union contract, Yen said.
Although Tsung doesn't have the hotel savvy of Stanley Yen, her close ties with the DPP administration could make a difference, she said.
"Most of the time, hotel owners who recruit their cronies instead of professionals to run their business, end up in failure. But Tsung may be able to make breakthroughs if she's fully supported by the government to carry out policies," Yen said.
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
Taiwan is attracting a growing number of foreign jobseekers as companies increasingly recruit overseas talent to ease labor shortages and expand global reach, recruitment platform 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said yesterday. More than 40,000 foreign nationals searched for jobs in Taiwan through the platform last year, a 28 percent increase from a year earlier, the company said. Malaysians accounted for the largest share of overseas jobseekers at 12.2 percent, followed by Indonesians at 11.9 percent and Vietnamese at 10.8 percent. Indonesian applicants surged more than 50 percent year-on-year, while Vietnamese jobseekers rose by more than 30 percent. Applicants from the
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
NO SHORTCUTS: Asked about Elon Musk’s Terafab initiative, TSMC CEO C.C. Wei said it takes two to three years to build a fab and another one to two to ramp it up Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday raised its revenue growth forecast for this year to above 30 percent, up from the 25 percent it estimated three months earlier, citing extremely robust artificial intelligence (AI)-related chip demand. “Our customers and customers’ customers, who are mainly cloud service providers, continue to send us very positive signals and outlook,” TSMC chairman and CEO C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at an earnings conference. The company also hiked its capital expenditure for this year toward the higher end of its forecast, or US$56 billion, as it aims to step up advanced chip capacity expansions, such as
RSS