Cosmos Hotel & Resorts Group (天成飯店集團) yesterday launched a new hotel, Hua Shan Din (華山町), in downtown Taipei, with an eye to achieving a 90 percent occupancy rate this year.
It is the group’s third hotel under the Cosmos Creation (天成文旅) series after the Sun Dialogue Hotel (繪日之丘) in Chiayi County and ICASA (回行旅) in Taichung.
“Hua Shan Din’s targets are young independent travelers from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and elsewhere in Asia, but it also seeks to appeal to family travelers with its historical, but fashionable design,” assistant director of marketing and communication Blythe Chao (趙芝綺) told a media briefing.
The group spent NT$200 million (US$6.55 million) to turn an old idle building of First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) near MRT Zhongxiao Xinsheng Station into the new lodging complex.
Hua Shan Din aims to differentiate itself from the competition by preserving the 70-year-old building’s columns and structure while accentuating its banking origin.
Built in 1952, the three-story complex used to be the state-run lender’s vault and warehouse for valuable collateral, Cosmos officials said.
The design theme accounts for the use of “gold” coins and mugs in each guestroom and the restaurant, they said.
Its proximity to Huashan 1914 Creative Park (華山1914文化創意產業園區) should lend further support to the hotel’s success, they said.
Hua Shan Din offers 72 guest rooms priced between NT$6,000 and NT$9,500, Chao said.
A 90 percent occupancy is achievable given its convenient location and modest size, another communication official said.
With the new hotel offering promotional packages of NT$3,399 to NT$4,399 until the end of September, its room rate is likely to average NT$4,000 this year, another communication official said.
Occupancy rates at affiliates Cosmos Taipei (台北天成大飯店), next to Taipei Railway Station, and Taipei Garden Hotel (台北花園大酒店), near MRT Ximen Station, have stayed high due to their convenient location, the official said.
Although inbound tourism has stagnated, the group remains upbeat about the hospitality industry and is to press ahead with its plans to expand using a multi-brand strategy, Chao said.
Cosmos runs 10 outlets under 11 brands that encompass hotels, restaurants, bakeries and a golf course. It is to open a luxury resort, Grand Cosmos Resort Ruisui (瑞穗春天國際觀光酒店), in Hualien County’s Rueisui Township (瑞穗) next quarter, Chao said.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort