Cathay Hospitality Management Co (國泰商旅), a hotel subsidiary of Cathay Real Estate Development Co (國泰建設), expects to reap a profit from the nation’s rising tourism revenue by integrating its resources with those of its parent group.
With a wealthy parent company, which is an affiliate of Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), Cathay Hospitality aims to reach break-even point within a year following the launch of three new hotels in the second half of this year, a company official said on Tuesday.
Cathay Hospitality launched its first mid-sized hotel with 135 rooms on Friday last week on Taipei City’s Minsheng E Road under the Hotel Cozzi (和逸) brand, targeting business travelers and independent tourists with a room budget of NT$5,000 (US$167) a night.
The company is scheduled to open its second hotel under the same brand on Taipei’s Zhongxiao E Road in September and then launch its first boutique brand hotel, Madison Taipei (台北慕軒), by the end of the year, both with about 120 rooms.
Other than the Greater Taipei area, Cathay Hospitality operations director Betty Huang (黃詩芸) said the company is also looking for appropriate locations in central and southern Taiwan as part of the firm’s expansion plan.
“The pace of our expansion could be faster [than other firms] because the parent group owns a large amount of land, which may help us find good locations more conveniently,” Huang told a media briefing yesterday.
Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽) owns more than 200 retail and office buildings in prime locations nationwide and has been aggressively increasing its real-estate investments.
Meanwhile, combining the life insurance company’s resources in healthcare, Cathay Hospitality is planning to launch a health travel packages in cooperation with its affiliate to raise its hotels’ average rate of occupancy, Huang added.
Tourism Bureau data showed that inbound tourism generated a historic high of US$11.77 billion in revenue last year, breaking the US$10 billion mark for the second straight year, up 6.36 percent from the previous year.
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