Occupancy rates averaged 64.14 percent for international tourist hotels in Taipei in July, while daily room rates stood at NT$4,445, the Tourism Bureau said on its Web site last week.
The latest occupancy data marked a 4.17 percent retreat from the same month last year, while room dates dropped 2.5 percent, signs of a challenge for the industry as the economy slows and competition sharpens.
STANDARD HOTELS
Standard hotels fared slightly better, with occupancy rates slowing from 72.24 percent to 71.65 percent in July from the same month last year, while daily room rates stood at NT$3,433, almost unchanged from NT$3,440 a year earlier, bureau figures showed.
The retreat is more evident at scenic areas across Taiwan, where international hotels recorded occupancy rates of 62.89 percent, down from 70.56 percent a year earlier, the figures showed.
Standard hotels in scenic areas saw occupancy rates little changed at 48.09 percent, compared with 48.67 percent a year earlier, government figures showed.
SCENIC AREAS
Hoteliers charged higher rates in scenic areas this year.
On average, lodging costs rose from NT$7,035 to NT$7,219 at international tourist hotels and spiked about 60 percent to NT$4,604 at standard hotels, the bureau said.
Cosmos Hotel Taipei (台北天成大飯店) outperformed its peers nationwide with a 97.18 percent occupancy rate, the bureau said.
Grand Mayfull Hotel Taipei (台北美福大飯店) scored the lowest rate of 7.05 percent, worse than Grand View Resort (北投麗禧溫泉酒店) at 36.07 percent and Hotel Royal Beitou (北投老爺酒店) at 25.87 percent, it said.
Summer is a low season for hot-spring facilities.
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
ELECTRONICS BOOST: A predicted surge in exports would likely be driven by ICT products, exports of which have soared 84.7 percent from a year earlier, DBS said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast for Taiwan this year to 4 percent from 3 percent, citing robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-related exports and accelerated shipment activity, which are expected to offset potential headwinds from US tariffs. “Our GDP growth forecast for 2025 is revised up to 4 percent from 3 percent to reflect front-loaded exports and strong AI demand,” Singapore-based DBS senior economist Ma Tieying (馬鐵英) said in an online briefing. Taiwan’s second-quarter performance beat expectations, with GDP growth likely surpassing 5 percent, driven by a 34.1 percent year-on-year increase in exports, Ma said, citing government
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of
RSS