The launch of daily nonstop charter flights between Taiwan and China has effectively cut travel time and cost across the Taiwan Strait, but it could also have a negative impact on domestic tourism, sources in the business sector said.
Industry insiders said on Monday that many small hotels and inns in the Kending National Park area on the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春半島) were facing sluggish advanced bookings — the worst in history.
Rooms at local hotels were almost fully booked as the new year approached last year, sources said, and hotel operators had hoped that the upcoming four-day extended holiday from Jan. 1 to Jan. 4 would generate even stronger momentum.
But those hopes have yet to be realized.
Chung Tien-hui (鍾添輝), who runs an inn in Kending (墾丁) targeting retail clients, said potential occupancy rates for the coming holiday at most of the hotels and bed and breakfasts in the area remained “low” — between 20 percent or 30 percent — even though New Year’s Day is only nine days away.
Chung said the economic slowdown was a factor in the poor advance bookings, but said that the nonstop daily charter flights to China launched on Dec. 15 were part of the problem as well.
The new service has made China-bound travel more affordable and convenient, to the point where a weekend in Shanghai could cost less than a few days in Kending.
A five-day tour from Taiwan to Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province, for instance, can cost as little as NT$5,000, less than a two-day trip from other parts of Taiwan to Kending — one of the country’s most popular tourism destinations.
A number of small hotels and homestays have started to fight back, offering 20 percent discounts on accommodation.
There remains concern that if the sluggish economic environment persists, they would also fare poorly during the Lunar New Year holiday, one of the peak periods for domestic travel, when hotels can usually charge premiums for rooms.
Lunar New Year’s Day falls on Jan. 26.
CARRIERS
In related news, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) reported that carriers from Taiwan and China had passenger load factors exceeding 70 percent in the first week of daily nonstop charter flights.
The CAA said five Taiwan-based carriers and seven China-based aviation companies operated nonstop charters during the first week, with the five Taiwanese carriers reporting an average passenger load factor of 73.8 percent during the first week of operations to Monday, with 22,089 of the 29,920 available seats filled.
The seven Chinese airlines sold 11,593 of the 15,964 seats available, for a load factor of 72.6 percent.The launch of daily nonstop charter flights between Taiwan and China has effectively cut travel time and cost across the Taiwan Strait, but it could also have a negative impact on domestic tourism, sources in the business sector said.
Industry insiders said on Monday that many small hotels and inns in the Kending National Park area on the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春半島) were facing sluggish advanced bookings — the worst in history.
Rooms at local hotels were almost fully booked as the new year approached last year, sources said, and hotel operators had hoped that the upcoming four-day extended holiday from Jan. 1 to Jan. 4 would generate even stronger momentum.
But those hopes have yet to be realized.
Chung Tien-hui (鍾添輝), who runs an inn in Kending (墾丁) targeting retail clients, said potential occupancy rates for the coming holiday at most of the hotels and bed and breakfasts in the area remained “low” — between 20 percent or 30 percent — even though New Year’s Day is only nine days away.
Chung said the economic slowdown was a factor in the poor advance bookings, but said that the nonstop daily charter flights to China launched on Dec. 15 were part of the problem as well.
The new service has made China-bound travel more affordable and convenient, to the point where a weekend in Shanghai could cost less than a few days in Kending.
A five-day tour from Taiwan to Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province, for instance, can cost as little as NT$5,000, less than a two-day trip from other parts of Taiwan to Kending — one of the country’s most popular tourism destinations.
A number of small hotels and homestays have started to fight back, offering 20 percent discounts on accommodation.
There remains concern that if the sluggish economic environment persists, they would also fare poorly during the Lunar New Year holiday, one of the peak periods for domestic travel, when hotels can usually charge premiums for rooms.
Lunar New Year’s Day falls on Jan. 26.
CARRIERS
In related news, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) reported that carriers from Taiwan and China had passenger load factors exceeding 70 percent in the first week of daily nonstop charter flights.
The CAA said five Taiwan-based carriers and seven China-based aviation companies operated nonstop charters during the first week, with the five Taiwanese carriers reporting an average passenger load factor of 73.8 percent during the first week of operations to Monday, with 22,089 of the 29,920 available seats filled.
The seven Chinese airlines sold 11,593 of the 15,964 seats available, for a load factor of 72.6 percent.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not