The launch of the Sibin Expressway (Highway No. 61), bad weather and intensive news coverage about a coronavirus outbreak in China contributed to a decrease in the number of visitors to freeway service areas during this year’s Lunar New Year holiday, the Freeway Bureau said yesterday.
A total of 1,452,988 people visited 14 freeway service areas during the seven-day national holiday, down 8.89 percent from the same period last year, with revenue at the stops sliding 4.77 percent to NT$218.99 million (US$7.25 million), bureau data showed.
“The final stretch of the Sibin Expressway was open for traffic before the Lunar New Year holiday, which helped divert some traffic away from freeways,” Toll and Service Division Director Liu Feng-liang (劉逢良) said. “News outlets started providing extensive coverage of the coronavirus outbreak in China and how it affected the nation on the first day of the holiday, and the weather turned bad on the second day of the holiday.”
Photo courtesy of the Changhua County Government
“All of these factors contributed to a significant decrease in visitors to freeway service areas,” he said.
Despite the decline in the number of visitors and revenue, Liu said that several freeway service areas outperformed their peers during the holiday.
For example, the revenue of the Guansi Service Area in Hsinchu County rose 1 percent to NT$21.93 million after the contractor began to sell popular products from South Korea, he said.
Taichung’s Cingshuei Service Area opened a new Japanese food court on the third floor, which generated NT$4.82 million during the holiday, or 11.8 percent of the service area’s revenue over the holiday, he added.
The upgraded Suhua Highway, which reopened for traffic on Jan. 6, helped boost the number of visitors to the Suao Service Area in Yilan County, Liu said, adding that several popular food brands in Yilan and Hualien counties have established stores in the service area, helping raise its revenue over the holiday to NT$7.86 million.
The revenue generated at the 14 service areas last year totaled NT$4.13 billion, up 1.6 percent from 2018, bureau data showed.
The top three freeway service areas by revenue growth were the Shiding Service Area in New Taipei City (9.55 percent), the Siluo Service Area in Yunlin County (5.68 percent) and the Sinying Service Area in Tainan (4.61 percent), the data showed.
Taiwan FamilyMart, the contractor operating the Shiding and Sinying service areas, has introduced famous chain restaurants, the bureau said, adding that the firm paid close attention to return customers when redesigning the food courts.
Nan Ren Hu Entertainment Co, which runs the Siluo Service Area, has increased revenue and the table turnover rate by increasing the variety of snacks for customers and packaged meals for taxi drivers, the bureau said.
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