The yet-to-be-built Yi-Hwa International Hotel (宜華國際觀光旅館) is expected to bring in about NT$400 million (US$12.5 million) in tax revenues per year and create between 800 and 1,000 jobs after it begins operations in 2014, Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) said yesterday.
Siew made the remarks at a groundbreaking ceremony for the four-in-one hotel and business complex, which stands on a 7,633 ping (25,233m²) plot of land in Taipei’s Dazhi District (大直) close to both Neihu Technology Park and Songshan Airport.
The multi-functional complex project comprises one 39-story hotel, serviced apartments, two 42-story hotel condominiums, one six-story international convention center and approximately 13,200m² of green space.
The NT$300 billion project is solely owned by B.V. Riu (劉文治), chairman of the Taipei-based luxury Sherwood Hotel (西華飯店).
The complex will be in line with the “Taipei Beautiful” program, an urban renewal project that aims to create another 6.3 hectares of green space in the city.
The English name of the hotel complex will include the “Marriot” brand name when it begins operations in the second quarter of 2014 after a franchise agreement was signed with US chain Marriot International Inc, Riu told the Taipei Times yesterday.
“Our goal is to provide a meeting venue and accommodation capable of hosting large-scale events, such as the annual APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting,” Riu said. “With a capacity to host more than 2,000 people, the convention center will be the largest non-state construction project ever built.”
Riu, 68, said he had thought about giving up on the project because of a slow and strict application process and his age, but with the encouragement of Siew and support of the Taipei City Government, he had decided to persevere.
“Sometimes I wonder whether it’s worth it to take such a big risk at my age, but the vice president told me that I couldn’t just pay lip-service and that I should put my love for Taiwan into action,” Riu said.
Siew said he often received complaints from local enterprises, particularly in the medical field, about a lack of large, suitable venues for international meetings.
“They are often forced to hold international meetings overseas,” Siew said.
Riu said he wanted to be a pioneer in the conventions business in Taiwan and that the convention center would improve his hotel business at the complex.
Riu is hoping that the hotel complex will promote visits to Taiwan and make the nation more visible in the international community, attracting more international entrepreneurs to invest in the nation.
Riu said he remains optimistic on the nation’s tourism and hotel industries as cross-strait relations get warmer, while touting direct flight services between Taiwan and China and the cross-strait trade pact signed in June.
“The ECFA [Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement] has thawed cross-strait relations that had been frozen for five or six decades. As long as there’s no big change to the government’s political stance [on China], Taiwan’s future is promising,” Riu said.
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
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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