Ambassador Hotel Ltd (國賓大飯店集團), one of Taiwan’s listed hotels, launched its first budget hotel in Taipei yesterday, aiming to reach its break-even point within seven years by eyeing independent travelers from Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and Malaysia.
The hotel — Amba Taipei Ximending (台北西門町意舍) — will begin its one-month trial operations on Saturday, with formal operations scheduled to begin on Feb. 23.
“Located in Ximending, a place full of rich cultural and tourism resources, we hope the hotel can attract tourists between the ages of 30 and 45,” Amba president Teresa Huang (黃絢霞) told a media briefing.
The increasing number of independent travelers to Taiwan and the success of Just Sleep (捷絲旅), a budget hotel launched by Formosa International Hotels Corp (FIHC, 晶華國際酒店集團) in 2009, gave Ambassador Hotel the inspiration to launch a new budget-conscious brand.
In 2010, Ambassador Hotel signed a contract with Eslite Corp (誠品) to rent one of Eslite’s properties in Ximending in downtown Taipei to build its first budget hotel.
Ambassador Hotel and China Prosperity Development Corp (中欣開發), a subsidiary of China Steel Corp (中鋼), invested a total of NT$350 million (US$11.67 million) for Amba Taipei Ximending, with Ambassador Hotel holding a 60 percent stake and China Prosperity holding the remaining 40 percent share.
Huang said the occupancy rate for the hotel’s rooms would reach 70 to 80 percent in the first year based on a conservative estimate, while most of the hotels located in Ximending have an 80 to 90 percent occupancy rate.
“With an average occupancy rate of 75 percent and an average room price of NT$3,200, the hotel aims at reaching break-even point, which means to earn back the total investment amount, in seven years,” Huang said.
Even though the tourism sector is poised to benefit from closer relations with China after President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) won a second term in office on Saturday, Huang said Chinese tourists would not be Amba’s primary target, as most travelers from China still travel in tour groups.
Huang said she expected tourists from Hong Kong and Macau would make up about 40 percent of the hotel’s customers in the initial stage, followed by 20 to 30 percent from Singapore and Malaysia.
Ambassador Hotel said it would keep looking for appropriate locations to build more hotels under the Amba brand.
The second Amba Taipei hotel is expected to open in 2014. The location would be near Songshan Railway Station, involving potential investors such as Ambassador Hotel and Ruentex Group (潤泰集團), the Amba president 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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
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