When most public venues closed doors yesterday for a second day by Typhoon Aere, some retailers raked in big bucks as consumers looked for places to enjoy the extra "holiday."
"It's so crowded and it's like weekend business here," said Alison Kao (
Core Pacific, located on Bade Road, started operation at 2pm yesterday and became the first department store to see customer traffic soar to the weekend level, followed by Idee on Nanking West Road at 3:30pm.
Kao said the business yesterday at Core Pacific was expected to rise 40 percent from the same period last week. The Warner Village Cinema inside Core Pacific also sold over 90 percent of its seats for each showing, with food courts and restaurants busy attending to local customers as well as foreign tourists who were forced to cancel sightseeing trips, she added.
Other shopping centers, however, reportedly missed the good fortune.
Although the typhoon impact dwindled in northern Taiwan around noon, Pacific Sogo Department Store, Shinkong Mitsukoshi Department Store, Taipei 101 Shopping Center and Takashimaya Department Store remained closed, with Shinkong Mitsukoshi with 11 outlets nationwide estimated to lose tens of millions of NT dollars per outlet per day.
Seas of people were also seen in the nation's largest electronics chain stores, Tsann Kuen 3C, which operates 147 outlets nationwide.
The company's vice president of merchandise planning, Chang Yueh-lung (
The situation was different yesterday.
"Outside our flagship outlet in Neihu there are traffic jams," he said yesterday. "Revenues will soar to the weekend level of nearly NT$100 million in total."
The typhoon also proved to be a boon to business-oriented hotels.
"The percentage of domestic customers booking accommodation rose 10 percent, because they said this way, they don't have to worry about food or possible blackouts and water shortages," said Tina Chen (
Far Eastern Plaza Hotel reported a 90-percent occupancy rate yesterday.
"Our restaurants and spa services are all booked, as most customers have their business schedules canceled," said communications director Christine Yen (
Film rental operators proved to be another big winner.
"As schools and offices in some areas have been closed these past two days, a rising number of customers have come for home entertainment," said a clerk at the Panchiao outlet of Blockbuster Taiwan, who declined to be named.
"The business is better than weekends," she said.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
UNWAVERING: Paraguay remains steadfast in its support of Taiwan, but is facing growing pressure at home and abroad to switch recognition to Beijing, Pena said Paraguayan President Santiago Pena has pledged to continue enhancing cooperation with Taiwan, as he and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida expressed opposition to any unilateral change to the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait using force, Japanese media reported on Saturday. Kishida yesterday completed a trip to France, Brazil and Paraguay, his first visit to South America since taking office in 2021. After the Japanese leader and Pena spoke for more than an hour on Friday, exchanging views on the situation in East Asia in the face of China’s increasing military pressure on Taiwan, they affirmed that “unilateral attempts to change the