The SARS-battered hotel business is bouncing back after the World Health Organization's announced it would remove Taiwan from its travel advisory list this Wednesday, which spells good news for trade shows to be held in the next half year.
"Bookings for late June to early July in our hotel have significantly increased after the travel ban was lifted," said Luanne Li (
"The rebound of overseas bookings -- which constitutes 80 percent of our business -- is remarkable," Li said.
Hyatt room occupancy is currently about 30 percent, up from 26 percent in May Li said, and she expects the number will pick up by another 20 or 30 percent in the next two to three weeks. The average occupancy rate this month was 75 percent, Li said.
Li further anticipates business will peak in September, when two major international trade shows -- Computex and Semicon -- will be held, saying the occupancy rate in Hyatt may surge to 90 percent by then.
Business in the nearby Far Eastern Plaza Hotel is also on the rise following the ban's removal.
"Reservations for the rest of this month and early next month are 50 percent now, and over 40 percent are foreign visitors," said Christine Yen (閻惠媛), director of communications at Far Eastern.
"I believe the hotel will be packed [during Computex], and there will be a long waiting list by September," she said.
In addition to the postponing of Computex from this month to September over SARS, several small-scale shows are also back on track, said Julian Lee (
"As soon as Taiwan was excluded from the list of places to avoid, many organizers rushed to inquire if they could reschedule their canceled events for the second half of the year," Lee said. "Many foreign business partners are also highly interested in coming back to the market."
An international food show and a computer game show have been rescheduled for September, and a wine and spirits exhibition is likely to be merged into another food show in December, Lee said.
The first show to resume in the CETRA schedule is the Furniture and Interior Decoration Show that runs from June 26 to June 29.
Other shows to be held next month and in August are the Computer Applications Show, the Aerospace Technology Show and the Telecommunications and Networking Show.
Although the next two months mark a low season for business hotels, as many foreign business-people are on vacation, hotels are not worried as they believe summer room rate deductions will lure local travelers.
"Many local consumers have been calling to inquire or book rooms for summer, which somewhat offsets the dull business season," Yen said.
"I believe the hard times for hoteliers are over," said Evelyn Kung (
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day