Hotel Royal Group (老爺大酒店集團) is to officially launch its new outlet, The Place Taipei, in the city’s Nangang District (南港) on Thursday to take advantage of conference and exhibition tourism in the area.
The hotel had its soft opening on March 1 and occupancy rates hit 70 percent during the Taipei International Machine Tool Show early this month.
The hotel said it is almost fully booked ahead of next week’s Taipei Cycle Show.
“That is an impressive showing, thanks to the convenient location at Nangang Software Park (南港軟體園區), within walking distance of the Nangang Exhibition Center and the Nangang MRT Station,” Hotel Royal chief executive Winston Shen (沈方正) told reporters on Friday last week.
The hotel is a NT$500 million (US$16.22 million) joint venture with the landlord, Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控), and caters to business travelers with daily room rates of NT$3,500 to NT$4,000, Shen said.
The outlet, with 179 guestrooms, is the group’s 11th property in Taiwan and fourth under The Place brand, which has a presence in Yilan County, Tainan and Taichung, in line with the company’s plan to expand at home and abroad, the group said.
Shen said he expects business travelers to account for 60 percent of the clientele.
The hotel has an Italian restaurant, called Soft Kitchen, and conference space that can accommodate 120 people, he said.
It plans to offer lunch boxes during trade fairs after receiving orders for 6,000 lunch boxes during the machine tool show between March 4 and March 9, Shen said.
While positioned as a business hotel, The Place Taipei has no intention to give up on leisure tourists and is collaborating with retail stores in Nangang to promote tours to help boost occupancy during the slow season for exhibitions, he said.
Dutch architecture firm Mecanoo helped design the hotel with an emphasis on the history of Nangkang’s industrial development, so design elements such as references to the tea industry and brick factories can be seen in the hotel, Shen said.
The hotel also offers automated check-in to help attract tech-savvy guests, he said.
The Place Taipei takes up the 10th to 20th floors of a mixed-use building that could generate NT$150 million in rental income annually for Shin Kong Financial.
DIVIDED VIEWS: Although the Fed agreed on holding rates steady, some officials see no rate cuts for this year, while 10 policymakers foresee two or more cuts There are a lot of unknowns about the outlook for the economy and interest rates, but US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled at least one thing seems certain: Higher prices are coming. Fed policymakers voted unanimously to hold interest rates steady at a range of 4.25 percent to 4.50 percent for a fourth straight meeting on Wednesday, as they await clarity on whether tariffs would leave a one-time or more lasting mark on inflation. Powell said it is still unclear how much of the bill would fall on the shoulders of consumers, but he expects to learn more about tariffs
NOT JUSTIFIED: The bank’s governor said there would only be a rate cut if inflation falls below 1.5% and economic conditions deteriorate, which have not been detected The central bank yesterday kept its key interest rates unchanged for a fifth consecutive quarter, aligning with market expectations, while slightly lowering its inflation outlook amid signs of cooling price pressures. The move came after the US Federal Reserve held rates steady overnight, despite pressure from US President Donald Trump to cut borrowing costs. Central bank board members unanimously voted to maintain the discount rate at 2 percent, the secured loan rate at 2.375 percent and the overnight lending rate at 4.25 percent. “We consider the policy decision appropriate, although it suggests tightening leaning after factoring in slackening inflation and stable GDP growth,”
Meta Platforms Inc offered US$100 million bonuses to OpenAI employees in an unsuccessful bid to poach the ChatGPT maker’s talent and strengthen its own generative artificial intelligence (AI) teams, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said. Facebook’s parent company — a competitor of OpenAI — also offered “giant” annual salaries exceeding US$100 million to OpenAI staffers, Altman said in an interview on the Uncapped with Jack Altman podcast released on Tuesday. “It is crazy,” Sam Altman told his brother Jack in the interview. “I’m really happy that at least so far none of our best people have decided to take them
PLANS: MSI is also planning to upgrade its service center in the Netherlands Micro-Star International Co (MSI, 微星) yesterday said it plans to set up a server assembly line at its Poland service center this year at the earliest. The computer and peripherals manufacturer expects that the new server assembly line would shorten transportation times in shipments to European countries, a company spokesperson told the Taipei Times by telephone. MSI manufactures motherboards, graphics cards, notebook computers, servers, optical storage devices and communication devices. The company operates plants in Taiwan and China, and runs a global network of service centers. The company is also considering upgrading its service center in the Netherlands into a
RSS