Formosa International Hotels Corp (晶華國際酒店集團), Taiwan’s largest listed hotel operator, is in talks to take over the Taipei City Club (台北聯誼會), a company official said yesterday.
“We have reached an initial agreement to take over the banquet and restaurant business of Taipei City Club, but the members and gym are not part of the deal,” Ellen Chang (張筠), Formosa Hotels’ public relations director, said by telephone.
The club is on Minsheng E Road near Songshan Airport, and the increased number of direct flights to China has drawn bankers and others engaged in commercial activity, she said.
Negotiations are still ongoing, and the new operation is not expected to open until after Lunar New Year, Chang said.
The 15-year-old Taipei City Club is located in the basement of the Hontai Building (宏泰大樓). Owned by Hontai Construction (宏泰建設), the club has facilities including banquet halls, restaurants, a sauna and a gym.
Chinese-language media reported yesterday that it might close for good tomorrow because of huge losses, with membership shrinking from a peak of 2,200 to the current 1,400. Clients reportedly have to fork out NT$180,000 to NT$680,000 for membership and a monthly fee of NT$3,800.
Some 160 employees at the club already failed to receive paychecks starting from September. The club lost money for the first time last year, with reports saying the losses amounted to NT$50 million (US$1.54 million).
A number of members who had already bought dining vouchers for the club raised concern yesterday over whether their vouchers would be valid if the club changes hands.
“In the deal with Hontai Construction, we didn’t talk about taking over the dining vouchers. Hontai should resolve all outstanding issues before handing the club over to us,” Chang said.
Many clubs in Taiwan, including Taipei City Club, have changed from exclusive, members-only clubs to include non-members, a public relations firm’s general manager said on condition of anonymity. Her company rented a hall at Taipei City Club some five years ago to hold media events.
“These club houses have to turn to outsiders to explore other revenue sources when membership is stagnant or when the economy doesn’t fare well,” she said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
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