Landis Taipei Hotel (台北亞都麗緻飯店), the flagship property of Landis Hospitality Group (麗緻餐旅集團), expects occupancy rates to drop in the second half of the year after Beijing banned individual tourists from visiting Taiwan from Thursday.
The conservative outlook came even though the 40-year-old hotel saw a significant pickup in occupancy in the first half and is focused on reversing losses from last year’s renovations.
“We aim to maintain occupancy rates steady in the second half and are now looking at an average of 75 percent for the whole year,” Newman Yen (顏鎮國), general manager of the group’s hotel operations, said yesterday.
The latest goal represents a 5 percent decline from the previous target of 80 percent, and was due to heightening cross-strait tensions, Yen said.
Despite its focus on business travelers, Landis Taipei could still take a hit from peers cutting prices to woo guests, Yen added.
The travel ban might cost Taiwan NT$20 billion (US$637.43 million) in tourism revenue and the number of Chinese tourists might drop by 700,000 over five months, said Huang Cheng-tsung (黃正聰), an associate professor at Providence University’s Department of Tourism.
People who plan to visit Taiwan this month have already obtained travel permits, Huang added.
Shares in listed tourism companies fell 4.23 percent this week, compared with the main board’s drop of 1.75 percent.
The number of Chinese tourists grew 28 percent to 1.66 million in the first six months of this year, recovering from a nosedive in 2016 after the inauguration of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
Landis Taipei is coping by boosting its food and beverage sales, especially by raising revenue contributions from its Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant Tien Hsiang Lo (天香樓), Yen said.
The hotel recently reopened the restaurant after spending NT$50 million on renovations that increased its capacity from 74 seats to 88 and enhanced its elegant appeal, the group’s managing director Michelle Hsu (徐儷萍) said.
Tien Hsiang Lo would add signature meal sets at NT$6,600 and NT$8,800 per head to satisfy the most picky palates, while keeping old meal sets, which range from NT$1,800 to NT$4,800, Hsu said.
An updated menu and larger capacity should increase the restarant’s revenue by 20 percent, Yen said, adding that Tien Hsiang Lo and affiliated banquet facilities generate 70 percent of overall food and beverage sales.
Room rates could average NT$4,600 for the entire year despite mild corrections in the summer, the low season for hoteliers in Taipei, Yen said.
Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) suffered its biggest stock decline in more than a month after the company unveiled new artificial intelligence (AI) chips, but did not provide hoped-for information on customers or financial performance. The stock slid 4 percent to US$164.18 on Thursday, the biggest single-day drop since Sept. 3. Shares of the company remain up 11 percent this year. AMD has emerged as the biggest contender to Nvidia Corp in the lucrative market of AI processors. The company’s latest chips would exceed some capabilities of its rival, AMD chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) said at an event hosted by
AVIATION: Despite production issues in the US, the Taoyuan-based airline expects to receive 24 passenger planes on schedule, while one freight plane is delayed The ongoing strike at Boeing Co has had only a minor impact on China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空), although the delivery of a new cargo jet might be postponed, CAL chairman Hsieh Su-chien (謝世謙) said on Saturday. The 24 Boeing 787-9 passenger aircraft on order would be delivered on schedule from next year to 2028, while one 777F freight aircraft would be delayed, Hsieh told reporters at a company event. Boeing, which announced a decision on Friday to cut 17,000 jobs — about one-tenth of its workforce — is facing a strike by 33,000 US west coast workers that has halted production
AI AIM: The chipmaker wants joint research and development programs with the Czech Republic, and the government is considering supporting investments in a Czech location Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is planning to build more plants in Europe with a focus on the market for artificial intelligence (AI) chips as the chipmaker expands its global footprint, a senior Taiwanese official said. “They have started construction of the first fab in Dresden; they are already planning the next few fabs in the future for different market sectors as well,” National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Minister Wu Cheng-wen (吳誠文) told Bloomberg TV in an interview that aired yesterday. Wu did not specify a timeline for TSMC’s further expansion in Europe. TSMC in an e-mailed statement said it
TECH JUGGERNAUT: TSMC shares have more than doubled since ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022, as demand for cutting-edge artificial intelligence chips remains high Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday posted a better-than-expected 39 percent rise in quarterly revenue, assuaging concerns that artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending is beginning to taper off. The main chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported third-quarter sales of NT$759.69 billion (US$23.6 billion), compared with the average analyst projection of NT$748 billion. For last month alone, TSMC reported revenue jumped 39.6 percent year-on-year to NT$251.87 billion. Taiwan’s largest company is to disclose its full third-quarter earnings on Thursday next week and update its outlook. Hsinchu-based TSMC produces the cutting-edge chips needed to train AI. The company now makes more
RSS