Ambassador Hotel Ltd (國賓大飯店), which operates four hotels under two brands and several restaurants in Taiwan, has announced a membership sharing program with Tokyu Hotels Co Ltd of Japan that it hopes will generate more Japanese customers.
Under the program, Tokyu Hotels members would accumulate reward points when checking in at the Ambassador Hotel’s three hotels in Taipei, Hsinchu and Greater Kaohsiung, and vice versa.
Tokyu Hotels — which operates more than 40 hotels in Japan under two brands — has 300,000 to 350,000 individual and corporate members.
“The plan will benefit the company’s room revenue in the long term,” Ambassador chief operating officer Frank Lin (林興國) told a press conference on Feb. 20.
Lin said Japanese visitors currently account for about 65 percent of Ambassador Hotel Taipei’s total customers.
Foreign visitor numbers grew 9.6 percent to 8.01 million last year from 2012, led by an increase of 16.4 percent in Hong Kong and Macau visitors to 1.18 million, followed by an 11.1 percent growth in Chinese visitors to 2.88 million, Tourism Bureau data showed.
However, the number of inbound Japanese tourists declined 0.8 percent to 1.42 million — the first decline in five years — mainly due to yen’s depreciation, according to the bureau.
The drop in visitors means more competition for hotels focused on Japanese customers, such as Ambassador Hotel Taipei and Hotel Royal-Nikko Taipei (台北老爺大酒店) — which is owned by Hotel Royal Group (老爺大酒店集團) under Nikko Hotels International brand of Japan.
The launch of the Okura Prestige Taipei (台北大倉久和大飯店) in 2012 has made the market even tougher.
Licensed by Okura Hotels & Resort, a world-renowned Japanese hotel chain, the hotel has seen its room occupancy rate average 81.5 percent last year, with Japanese visitors accounting for more than half of its customers.
“We do not have a specific strategy to attract tourists from Japan … but the Okura brand gives a sense of security to customers,” Okura Prestige Taipei general manager Shinji Umehara told reporters last week.
The hotel’s average room rate was about NT$6,000 last year, company data showed.
Some other hoteliers, such as the Westin Taipei (台北威斯汀六福皇宮), also aim to attract more Japanese this year.
The Westin Taipei, a luxury hotel owned by Leofoo Tourism Group (六福旅遊集團) and operated under a license by Westin License Co, expects to raise its total Japanese customers to 20 percent this year, from 17 percent last year, hotel manager Ben Chen (陳怡斌) said.
Japanese client numbers at the hotel rose 30 percent last year from the year before, Chen said.
Westin Taipei plans to raise its average room rate to NT$7,000 this year, from NT$6,500 last year, he added.
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
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last