Chang Wen-i (張文毅), a Taiwanese-American who runs environmentally friendly hotels in California, said in Taipei yesterday that the company was planning to list on the local bourse by the end of this year.
Chang, the founder and chairman of the South San Francisco-based Atman Hospitality Group Inc (歸真集團), said several governmental agencies and private companies have been encouraging him to return to Taiwan to invest, after visiting the company’s hotels in the US.
Chang said the company was eyeing a piece of land in Taitung, but was also worried of difficulties in acquiring land.
“We welcome companies from different industries that are interested in cooperating with our company, but the premise is that we share the same belief,” Chang said by telephone yesterday.
The company has two green hotels in California. GAIA Napa Valley Hotel is the first hotel Chang opened in California, and GAIA Anderson Hotel & Spa is located in Anderson, California.
A third hotel, GAIA Merced Hotel, located in downtown Merced, California, is currently under construction. Chang said the company had plans to open six other hotels in California.
In a Chinese-language cnYES.com report yesterday, Chang said that GAIA Napa Valley Hotel had an annual revenue of US$3 million, with an occupancy rate of between 75 percent and 80 percent.
Chang said the hotel’s room rates are on average 8 percent to 10 percent higher than the industry average, and he estimated that the hotel’s annual revenue would be able to reach between US$4 million and US$5 million.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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