The Fleur de Chine Hotel (雲品溫泉酒店) is expecting revenue to improve this quarter on the back of a peak season and a facility upgrade.
The hotel is the flagship resort property of FDC International Hotels Corp (雲品國際).
Occupancy at the luxury resort near Nantou County’s Sun Moon Lake (日月潭) is likely to hold steady at 80 percent, with a modest gain in room rates as well as food and beverage sales, FDC chairman Emile Sheng (盛治仁) said.
China’s ban on individual tourists to Taiwan has had little impact on the 211-room facility, as domestic travelers account for 75 percent of its clientele, Sheng said.
“While peers try hard to woo Chinese tourists, the Fleur de Chine assigns great importance to domestic travelers, in line with the hotel’s risk diversification and market expansion policies,” Sheng told a media briefing on Tuesday.
Taiwanese take 10 domestic trips a year on average, a business potential that has benefited the hotel, which has grown into a popular destination for family and incentive travelers thanks to quality food and service, coupled with hot springs and views of Sun Moon Lake, he said.
Despite an economic slowdown that kept occupancy flat, the Fleur de Chine’s room rates rose from NT$7,916 to NT$8,239 (US$260 to US$272) in the first nine months of this year.
An increase in the hotel’s share of independent tourists helped raise room charges, although the number of Hong Kong guests has plummeted, Sheng said.
Winter is the peak season for hotels featuring hot springs, with the number of guests usually rising 5 to 10 percent from the third quarter, and the Fleur de China is to receive extra support from this week from the opening of Cantonese restaurant Ken Can by Michelin star-awarded chef Ken Chan (陳偉強).
FDC had planned to add a Cantonese restaurant to the Fleur de Chine and found that the time was ripe when affiliated Le Palais (頤宮), at the Palais de Chine (君品酒店), was awarded three stars by the Michelin Guide Taipei for two consecutive years, Sheng said.
The Fleur de Chine has upgraded its rooftop lounge, fitness center, Wi-Fi connection and children’s playrooms, part of a renovation project that is to cost more than NT$100 million over three years, the hotel said.
In the first three quarters, FDC’s net income rose 2.4 percent year-on-year to NT$112 million, or earnings per share of NT$1.7.
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while California Governor Gavin Newsom of the Democratic Party maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears would lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other US state — a few hundred, by some estimates. About half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly US$350 billion budget, comes from the top 1 percent of earners. A large healthcare union is attempting to place a proposal before
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
RSS