Economy hotel brand Goya Hot Springs Hotel & Spa (高野大飯店) expects revenue to stay flat next year from this year as it seeks to increase the number of domestic tourists to ease potential losses of Chinese guests following the presidential elections next month, senior company officials said earlier this week.
The Taitung-based hospitality company, which operates seven resort hotels in Taiwan, plans to make its first foray into Kaohsiung next year and increase its number of hotels to 10 in five years, company chairman Liu Chin-lan (劉清郎) said.
“We have a neutral view about next year’s business outlook because of political uncertainty, even though the economy is generally expected to improve modestly,” Liu told an investors’ conference in Taipei on Tuesday.
The company on Jan. 6 is scheduled to be listed on the Taipei Exchange, the over-the-counter bourse for companies with small and medium capitalization.
Chinese tourists account for 60 percent of the brand’s clientele at the branch near Alishan (阿里山) in Chiayi County, 30 percent at the Hualien subsidiary and a significant percentage in Taitung, company general manager Yang Shu-chang (楊書昌) said.
Created in 1998 as the Hoya Resort Hotel Group, the company was renamed Goya Hot Spring Hotel & Spa in 2008 and has capital of NT$444 million (US$13.4 million). It operates 1,325 rooms with average daily rates ranging from NT$2,000 in Hualien to NT$4,000 at Wuling Farm (武陵農場) in Taichung, Yang said.
The hotelier has emerged from an outbreak of norovirus infections in February at the Wuling location and is prepared for the upcoming cherry blossom season, Liu said.
“We hope the cherry blossom season will mitigate the potential business losses at locations dominated by Chinese tourists,” Liu said.
The impact of the elections has yet to become evident, but the company prefers to be cautious, Liu said.
For the first three quarters of this year, Goya posted net income of NT$214 million, or earnings per share of NT$4.82, company data showed.
The results represented an increase of 74 percent from the same period last year, thanks to one-off asset disposals that more than offset a 0.39 percent drop in revenue, the hotelier said.
Goya aims to establish a presence in more competitive locations in Taiwan by opening an integrated establishment that features 179 hotel rooms and 32 motel rooms in Kaohsiung in the third quarter of next year, Liu said.
The company plans to invest NT$900 million in the Kaohsiung location and expects to win back the sum in 11.77 years, chief financial officer Liu Shu-chu (劉淑珠) said.
An occupancy rate of 56 percent would allow the company to break even, compared with 62 percent for peers, Liu Shu-chu said.
The company is also in talks with potential partners at home and abroad to expand in northern Taiwan in areas such as near the high-speed rail station in Taoyuan and Southeast Asia, Liu Chin-lan said.
“Soaring property prices in northern Taiwan have significantly raised profitability hurdles and we have to carefully review before taking action,” Liu Chin-lan said.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure