Newly opened Hotel Pin (品文旅) in Yilan County’s Jiaosi Township (礁溪) aims to achieve 70 percent occupancy in the first year, unfazed by growing competition that last year drove six small hotels out of the market.
“The goal is achievable, as occupancy already averaged 70 percent during the soft opening in May, thanks to promotional discounts,” Hotel Pin general manager Jimmy Huang (黃明政) told a media briefing yesterday.
A new lifestyle brand under Taipei-based L’Hotel de Chine Group (LDC, 雲朗觀光), the hotel is to benefit from existing marketing campaigns and the sales channel, Huang said.
The facility, featuring 178 guestrooms, aims to raise average room rates from NT$3,200 to NT$4,500 per night to set it apart from the nearby affiliated Maison de Chine (兆品酒店), which has daily room rates of NT$5,500, he said.
While Maison de Chine is courting family guests, Pin is targeting young, budget-savvy travelers who do not want to compromise on travel quality, he added.
Both properties are a franchise contract between LDC and Got More Co (佳茂化學), a Taiwanese manufacturer of plastic bricks and toys, which spent NT$3 billion (US$943.1 million) building Pin, a two-building complex with 3,400 ping (11,239.69m2) of floor space.
Pin is the only hotel in the neighborhood with a pizza house and an affiliated organic farm supplying its vegetables, Huang said.
“That might help us stand out against competitors such as Just Sleep (捷絲旅), which is within walking distance,” he said.
Huang said that competition is heating up, as another hotel is set to enter Jiaosi Township next year, a market where there are already six hotel brands, including My Humble House Hospitality Management Consulting Co’s (寒舍餐旅) Mu Jiaosi Hotel (礁溪寒沐酒店), the Hotel Royal Chiaohsi (礁溪老爺大酒店), Evergreen Resort Hotel in Jiaosi (長榮鳳凰酒店) and the Forte Hotel Group (福泰飯店).
“The hotels with distinct appeal and sensible pricing will emerge victoriously,” Huang said.
A distinctive feature of Pin is its eco-friendly atmosphere: It does not provide disposable slippers, toothbrushes or other hygiene items.
Separately, Caesar Park Hotel Banciao (板橋凱撒飯店), the flagship property of Caesar Park Hotels and Resorts (凱撒飯店連鎖), is looking at a 20 to 30 percent increase in food and beverage sales in the second half of this year, as it enters its peak season.
Its Chinese restaurant Jia Yan (家宴) has launched special chicken, beef and seafood entrees fused with fruits and vegetables to help boost healthy eating, at prices starting from NT$380, marketing and communications official Zara Wang (王筱瑩) said on Monday.
The second half of the year traditionally generates 60 percent of the hotel’s food and beverage revenue, while the first half accounts for the remaining 40 percent, Wang said.
The property of 400 guestrooms has three restaurants and originally aimed for food and beverage to contribute 65 percent of sales, vice president Jack Wu (武祥生) had said.
The hotel reported occupancy rates of 80 percent on average in the first half of this year, but rates have fallen to 60 percent over the summer thus far as competition sharpens, she said.
The entry of the Hilton Taipei Sinban Hotel (台北新板希爾頓酒店) into the New Taipei City market and the Marriott Taipei Downtown (台北國泰萬怡酒店) in Taipei provide customers more options, she said. Hilton returned to Taiwan after a 14-year hiatus.
Caesar Park Banciao has sought to drive up occupancy by offering special packages aimed at school children, Wang said.
Average room rates have improved to NT$4,500 this year from NT$4,000 last year, she added.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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