Holiday KTV is increasing its prices on the back of the second stage of electricity rate increases, the chain said.
The chain said it has found it impossible to sustain profits and have been forced to pass the additional cost on to customers.
The Holiday KTV store on Emei Street near Taipei’s Ximending District (西門町), for example, has recently raised the basic fees per person — along with orders of food — from NT$520 to NT$550 during the peak period of 7pm to 11 pm on Friday and Saturday nights.
Photo: Chiu-Shao-wen, Taipei Times
Consumers said the increase meant that the outlet made an additional NT$300 per 10 people, and complained about the price of food also going up.
A bowl of beef noodles, which used to cost NT$140, now costs NT$150, while chicken noodle soup, originally priced at NT$110, was now NT$140, consumers said.
However, the basic fees for renting a room have not changed, and the price of beer has been lowered slightly due to seasonal promotions, although it may be raised later.
Holiday spokesperson Lai Hsin-hung (賴欣洪) said that overall revenues for the chain across the nation had plunged by 20 percent this year.
Lai added that in addition to the slowing economy, inflation and now electricity rate hikes had contributed to the slight rise in prices across the chain’s outlets in the Greater Taipei area.
Pointing to the chain’s medium-sized outlets as an example, Lai said that on average the outlets had to pay NT$550,000 more for electricity last month than in August.
Lai added that during the summer, electricity fees may reach between NT$700,000 and NT$800,000.
Electricity costs eat up about 10 percent of the chain’s revenue on average, Lai said, adding that the outlets had compensated by turning off the lights in public areas on all floors to reduce electricity bills.
Other KTV chains, such as Cashbox and New CB Party, said they currently do not plan to raise prices, but added that they would make a final decision after receiving their electricity bills next month.
Commenting on the matter, an office worker surnamed Chou (周) said that if Holiday, which is known for its lower-than-average prices, was raising its prices, he would have to cut down on his entertainment expenditures.
A college student named Chen Ming-wen (陳明文) said that KTV establishments have been a favored location for family gatherings or friends’ birthday parties, but if the prices continued to rise, other alternatives would have to be found. Chen said students could not afford the fees now being asked of them at KTV establishments.
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:
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
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater