My Humble House Hospitality Management Consulting Co (寒舍餐旅) aims to lift its presence by building its own hotel brands and working with financial and building companies to set up new hotels, top officials said yesterday.
The company, which is to make its initial public offering on the Taiwan Stock Exchange on May 19, expects to survive a drop in Chinese tourists unharmed, thanks to its focus on business and individual travelers.
“We are cultivating our own brands with a consistent strategy to merge art with fine living and dining experiences,” chairwoman Ellie Lai (賴英里) told an investors conference in Taipei.
The company, which owns the five-star Sheraton Grand Taipei Hotel (台北喜來登大飯店) and Le Meridien Taipei (台北寒舍艾美酒店), posted NT$303 million (US$9.39 million ) in net income last year, or earnings of NT$3 per share, company data showed.
The results represented a 6.7 percent pickup on the back of food and beverage revenues since occupancy and room rates declined slightly amid the nation’s economic slowdown.
The company operates more than a dozen Chinese, Japanese, Thai and buffet restaurants that together generated more than 60 percent of its total revenues last year, making the firm less susceptible to negative business cycles, managing director William Tsai (蔡伯翰) said.
The cooperation with Starwood Hotels and Resorts has created a stable source of international business and individual travelers, thanks to that firm’s loyal membership of 20 million, Tsai said.
That contribution might increase after Starwood and Marriott International Inc merge in July, Starwood Asia-Pacific president Stephen Ho (何國祥) said in Taipei.
Tsai is the son of My Humble House founder Tsai Chen-yang (蔡辰洋), who died of heart failure in January.
He said that the company is trying to develop its own customer base as well.
In addition, it is seeking to expand in Taiwan and overseas, including in China.
My Humble House plans to establish two more upscale hotels in the next two years through partnerships with financial and building companies to save development costs, Tsai said.
The company has inked a deal with Transglobe Life Insurance Co (全球人壽) to develop a resort hotel in Yilan County’s Jiaosi Township (礁溪). It also will work with and Continental Development Corp (大陸建設) to develop a mixed-use boutique hotel in downtown Taipei, Tsai said.
The Jiaosi facility could come into service in the third quarter of next year, the managing director said.
The boutique hotel, which is to include serviced apartments, could start operations in 2018, Tsai said.
“We will seek to differentiate our hotels from our rivals by emphasizing cuisines and art,” he said.
He cited the example of La Meridien Taipei, which has more than 700 original works of art.
“La Meridien Taipei is more like a museum than a hotel,” he said.
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