Japan’s JR Hotels Group has inked a deal with Taiwan’s Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽) to open a new hotel on the former site of Westin Taipei (台北威斯汀六福皇宮) that would start operations in early 2021.
The hotel will occupy the building on Nanjing E Road owned by Cathy Life that has remained idle for the past 10 months after Westin Taipei ceased operations in January because of the high rent.
It would be the first venture into Taiwan by the Japanese hotel chain, which plans to target local as well as Japanese travelers.
JR Hotel Group, an affiliate of Japan Railways Group, owns and manages a large number of hotels adjacent to train stations in major cities across Japan.
Its Taipei hotel will be within walking distance of Taipei’s Songjiang-Nanjing MRT station.
The new tenant would be responsible for remodeling the 20-year-old property, to be named Hotel Metropolitan Premier Taipei, a five-star facility with 288 guestrooms, Cathay Life said.
The building has 15 stories aboveground and six basement floors on a 1,756 ping (5,805m2) plot.
The new hotel will have restaurants, banquet rooms, swimming pools, fitness facilities and other modern amenities, the insurer said.
Howard Hotel Group (福華飯店集團), Taiwan’s largest hospitality company by number of hotel rooms, reportedly helped push for the venture, and a joint venture by Howard’s affiliate and JR Hotels’ Taipei branch office would be in charge of drawing Metropolitan Taipei’s business strategy and management, local media said.
The two signed a cooperation agreement in November last year to share resources on sales, membership and employee training, the reports said.
Howard Group owns 20 facilities in Taiwan with a total of 3,200 rooms, while JR Hotels operates 48 hotels with 7,378 rooms near main railway stations.
Howard Group president Michael Liao (廖東漢) was present at yesterday’s ceremony to introduce Metropolitan Taipei.
JR Hotels said that Taiwan’s dynamic market in tourism and retail sales encouraged the company’s expansion into Taiwan.
Other Japanese hospitality companies shared their optimism.
Hoshino Resorts recently opened a luxury resort hotel in Taichung featuring hot spring facilities.
Local developer Hung Poo Real Estate Development Co (宏普建設) is to launch Mitsui Garden Hotel near the Zhongxiao-Xinsheng MRT station next year.
JR West Hotels plans to open Solaria Nishitetsu Hotel in the Ximending area in 2023, according to local media reports.
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
RSS