Once the most famous sightseeing spot in Taiwan, the observatory on top of the nation's third highest building, the Shin Kong Tower, will close down at the end of the year after posting losses over the past two years, a company official said yesterday.
The 12-year lease contract for the observatory, located on the 46th floor, or 200m up in the tower opposite the Taipei Main Station, will expire on Dec. 31.
Wu Chuan-chuan (吳娟娟), general manager of the Shin Kong Observatory, said the business started getting in the red two years ago and has posted losses of NT$6 million (US$179,100) this year alone.
"It's the best sightseeing spot. Perhaps people have forgotten about it, and perhaps we haven't done enough marketing and advertising," Wu said.
Opened in 1994, the observatory once drew over 6,000 people a day at its peak, but traffic has drastically declined to only 100 tourists on weekdays or more than 200 on weekends.
Shin Kong Tower's halo has been snatched by the much higher Taipei 101 Observatory, located on the 89th floor of the Taipei 101 building at a height of 382.2m.
Taipei 101 has become the new favorite with traffic surging to 5,000 to 8,000 people on holidays, said Michael Liu (劉家豪), assistant vice president of Taipei Financial Center Corp (台北金融大樓公司), manager of the skyscraper.
Ryanair, Transavia, Volotea and other low-cost airlines are feeling the financial pain from high jet fuel prices as a result of the Middle East war and are cutting flights. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has taken a huge chunk of oil supplies off the market, sending the price of jet fuel soaring and triggering fears of shortages that could force airlines to cancel flights. Airlines are not waiting for a lack of supplies to react. “Travel alert: Airlines are cutting thousands of flights right now,” Travel Therapy host Karen Schaler said in an Instagram reel this past weekend.
MANAGING RISKS: Taiwan has secured LNG sufficient to cover 95 percent of electricity demand for next month, UBS said, describing the government’s approach as proactive UBS Group AG has raised its forecast for Taiwan’s economic growth this year to 8 percent, up from 6.9 percent previously, and said expansion could reach as high as 8.6 percent if external energy shocks are avoided. The upgrade reflects a stronger-than-expected first-quarter performance and sustained momentum in artificial intelligence (AI)-driven exports, which UBS said are providing a firm foundation for growth despite geopolitical and energy risks. Taiwan’s GDP expanded 13.69 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, the fastest growth since the second quarter of 1987, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) reported on Thursday. On a seasonally
The list of Asian stocks that benefit from business partnership with Nvidia Corp is getting longer, as the region further integrates into the artificial intelligence (AI) chip giant’s business ecosystem. Just in the past week, South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc, Taiwan’s Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), as well as China’s Huizhou Desay SV Automotive Co (德賽西威) and Pateo Connect Technology Shanghai Corp (博泰車聯) have become the latest to rally on news of tie-ups, supply-chain participation or product collaboration with the US chip designer. Asian suppliers account for about 90 percent of Nvidia’s production costs, up from about 65 percent last year, data compiled
The Fair Trade Commission’s (FTC) ongoing review of Grab Holdings Ltd’s US$600 million acquisition of Foodpanda Taiwan’s operations, announced on March 23, has taken on fresh urgency as industry experts warn that the transaction could embed significant Chinese cybersecurity vulnerabilities into Taiwan’s digital infrastructure through Grab’s deep ties to autonomous-driving firm WeRide (文遠知行). Less than 16 months after the FTC blocked Uber Eats’ direct attempt to acquire Foodpanda Taiwan — citing potential combined market shares of 80 to 90 percent — the emergence of Grab as the buyer has prompted questions about whether the same competitive harm is simply being rerouted
RSS