S Hotel’s occupancy has fallen to 20 to 30 percent from an average of 80 percent last year, as tourist arrivals come to a virtual standstill amid the COVID-19 outbreak, it said.
Like most of its peers, the boutique facility in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山) is attempting to stay afloat by cutting its headcount and reducing working hours, as well as offering customers takeout food services and discount rates.
Taipei labor authorities confirmed that the hotel filed to place 55 employees on unpaid leave between last month and this month to cope with a sharp decline in business.
The hotel’s Chinese celebrity owner Wang Xiaofei (汪小菲) said on his blog that he does not want to let anyone go and hopes his colleagues could help the hotel through the tough time.
The hospitality industry is bearing the brunt of the global travel restrictions imposed to hinder the spread of COVID-19.
The hotel, with 103 designed rooms, is seeking to attract domestic travelers through room rate discounts and shore up sales at its restaurant by offering takeout food at NT$280 per set.
“The strategy is expected to drive up food revenue before things can return to normal,” S Hotel director of sales Vivienne Lee (李雅惠) told the Taipei Times.
The hotel’s restaurant and bar facility fares better than its rooms, thanks to its relatively affordable menu in a neighborhood with plenty of professional workers, Lee said.
Hong Kong chef Constant Cheung (張卓智) has updated the menu to feature nouvelle cuisine at NT$680 per set at lunch and from NT$1,580 at dinner.
The hotel is also offering guests a 25 percent discount for dinner sets priced at NT$1,580 and NT$1,980, plus a 10 percent service charge.
The demise of the coal industry left the US’ Appalachian region in tatters, with lost jobs, spoiled water and countless kilometers of abandoned underground mines. Now entrepreneurs are eyeing the rural region with ambitious visions to rebuild its economy by converting old mines into solar power systems and data centers that could help fuel the increasing power demands of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. One such project is underway by a non-profit team calling itself Energy DELTA (Discovery, Education, Learning and Technology Accelerator) Lab, which is looking to develop energy sources on about 26,305 hectares of old coal land in
Taiwan’s exports soared 56 percent year-on-year to an all-time high of US$64.05 billion last month, propelled by surging global demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing and cloud service infrastructure, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) called the figure an unexpected upside surprise, citing a wave of technology orders from overseas customers alongside the usual year-end shopping season for technology products. Growth is likely to remain strong this month, she said, projecting a 40 percent to 45 percent expansion on an annual basis. The outperformance could prompt the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and
Netflix on Friday faced fierce criticism over its blockbuster deal to acquire Warner Bros Discovery. The streaming giant is already viewed as a pariah in some Hollywood circles, largely due to its reluctance to release content in theaters and its disruption of traditional industry practices. As Netflix emerged as the likely winning bidder for Warner Bros — the studio behind Casablanca, the Harry Potter movies and Friends — Hollywood’s elite launched an aggressive campaign against the acquisition. Titanic director James Cameron called the buyout a “disaster,” while a group of prominent producers are lobbying US Congress to oppose the deal,
Two Chinese chipmakers are attracting strong retail investor demand, buoyed by industry peer Moore Threads Technology Co’s (摩爾線程) stellar debut. The retail portion of MetaX Integrated Circuits (Shanghai) Co’s (上海沐曦) upcoming initial public offering (IPO) was 2,986 times oversubscribed on Friday, according to a filing. Meanwhile, Beijing Onmicro Electronics Co (北京昂瑞微), which makes radio frequency chips, was 2,899 times oversubscribed on Friday, its filing showed. The bids coincided with Moore Threads’ trading debut, which surged 425 percent on Friday after raising 8 billion yuan (US$1.13 billion) on bets that the company could emerge as a viable local competitor to Nvidia
RSS