The Grand Hotel experienced its most profitable first three quarters in a decade-and-a-half, after grossing more than NT$1.3 billion (US$42.02 million) last year, the Duen Mou Foundation (台灣敦睦聯誼會), which manages the hotel, said yesterday.
While the net income for last year was more than NT$24.89 million, it is expected to be more than NT$35.74 million this year, the foundation said in a report to the legislative Transportation Committee, which met to review the hotel’s budget yesterday.
Total revenue this year is forecast at NT$1.82 billion, including NT$1.03 billion from catering services, NT$590 million from lodging and NT$120 million from memberships, the foundation said, adding that that would represent a NT$14 million slide from last year due to declining income from catering and lodging.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
However, net profit would exceed last year’s due to cost reductions, the foundation said.
It forecast total costs this year would be NT$1.76 billion — including NT$1.40 billion in operation costs and NT$310 million in catering costs — or at least NT$20 million less than last year.
While the Grand Hotel Taipei had an occupancy rate of 67 percent last year, the Grand Hotel Kaohsiung reported only 57 percent occupancy and has incurred losses, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-tse (李昆澤) said at the meeting.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
The Kaohsiung branch lost NT$92.04 million last year and is expected to see losses of NT$78.51 million this year and NT$58.92 million next year, with an estimated cumulative deficit of NT$200 million, Lee said, urging the foundation to address the issue.
Hotel president Jackson Yang (楊守毅) said the Kaohsiung hotel this year spent NT$35 million to improve its swimming pool and ballroom, and added boardwalks.
Following the renovation, the booking rates for its restaurants have significantly increased, he said, adding that the property has only 107 guest rooms and cannot turn a profit on lodging alone.
Lee said the Taipei hotel had spent NT$500 million to renovate its facilities and encouraged the Kaohsiung branch to follow suit.
Considering that pricing at the Kaohsiung hotel equals that at a five-star hotel, it must increase its competitiveness to attract more guests, he said.
Yang said the Kaohsiung hotel would be rated next year and its goal is to be awarded five stars.
The Grand Hotel is owned by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and opened its first branch in Taipei in 1952.
Following President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) inauguration in 2016, former DPP legislator Chang Hsueh-shun (張學舜) became hotel chairman.
Chang stepped down last month and Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications Wang Kwo-tsai (王國材) has since been serving as acting chairman.
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
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
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