Nine international hotel chains, including Le Meridien, St. Regis, element and Aloft, are interested in the Taiwanese market because of improving cross-strait ties and the opening to Chinese tourists, a top Sheraton Taipei Hotel manager said yesterday.
“These investments may total millions of US dollars,” Josef Dolp, who is also area managing director of Taiwan Starwood hotels & resorts, said on the sidelines of an European Chamber of Commerce in Taipei (ECCT) luncheon.
He said these chains would add 2,000 rooms to the market.
Other five-star chains include Starwood, which owns the Sheraton Taipei and plans to launch its Hsinchu outlet in December, Westin and W Hotels as well as four-star Four Points, which has an outlet in Jhonghe (中和), Taipei County.
Dolp said that Sheraton will launch an outlet in Ilan before the end of next year, while Le Meridien will open its first hotel in Taipei around October next year.
By 2011, both Sheraton and Four Points will have operations in Penghu, while Aloft is assessing the possibility of operating four-star serviced apartments, he said.
The government should carefully review new hotel projects to ensure the sector doesn’t become saturated, he said.
Dolp said the new hotels would help lift the sector’s revenues and some companies would also expand into the four-star market and second-tier cities by partnering with Taiwanese property owners.
“We’re looking at a 10-year development in Taiwan,” he said.
Zhang Yun (張允), general manager of Air China’s (中國國際航空) Taiwan branch, was also upbeat about local tourism.
Airlines offering direct cross-strait flights have recently averaged a 90 percent load rate after carrying a total of 212,269 passengers in 956 flights since last July, he told the luncheon.
The number of Chinese tourists has increased to average 4,000 per day in recent months, Zhang said. Swine flu may keep some tourists at home, but this would be a short-term problem, he said.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) told ECCT members that the government wanted to boost annual tourism revenues to NT$500 billion (US$15.3 billion) by 2012 while creating 500,000 jobs in the sector.
Mao and Tourism Bureau Director General Janice Lai (賴瑟珍) said the government was determined to develop tourism alongside its NT$30 billion infrastructure improvement plan.
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