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CAL’s four-star Taoyuan hotel to open in November

China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空), the nation’s largest air carrier, is scheduled to open a four-star hotel near Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in November after almost two years of construction.

A company official, however, said yesterday that the Novotel Taipei Taoyuan International Airport Hotel was intended to provide transit accommodation for business travelers and flight crew rather than passengers.

“We do not count on the hotel to boost CAL profits,” Roger Han (韓梁中), head of CAL finance division, said by telephone. “Rather, it can help meet the needs of transit passengers, business travelers and crew members.”

Han said the nine-story, 360-room hotel would hire about 200 staff and help promote CAL’s service and internal training needs.

CAL and foreign airlines will be able to house their pilots and crew at the hotel, which is a five minutes’ drive from the airport, he said.

The Novotel Taoyuan International Airport Taipei is part of a 50-year build-operate-transfer (BOT) project CAL signed with the Civil Aeronautics Administration three years ago. In March 2007, the carrier signed a contract with France-based hotel management service provider Accor to manage the Novotel on its behalf.

Accor operates more than 4,000 hotels in 90 countries under various chain names. There are currently more than 400 Novotel hotels and resorts in the world.

Han declined to elaborate on the expected accommodation prospects for the hotel. He said that despite what was said in an announcement in 2007, CAL had no plan to build another Novotel hotel.

Aside from the hotel building, the three-building complex — located about 1.5km from the airport — will also house CAL’s corporate headquarters as well as a crew training and dispatch center.

The construction costs for the entire project are estimated at NT$4.5 billion (US$137 million), with the hotel accounting for NT$1.5 billion, Han said.

CAL plans to move its headquarters to the complex in February and lease out the six floors it occupies at the headquarters on Nanjing E Road, Han said, adding that the company expects to collect NT$7 million, or NT$2,000 per ping (3.2m²), in rental income a month.
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