Landis Taipei Hotel (台北亞都麗緻飯店), the flagship property of Landis Hospitality Group (麗緻餐旅集團), has reported a significant pickup in room and restaurant revenues, although continuing border controls limited the scale of recovery.
“Business would grow nearly twofold this and next month, from the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in February and March, when foreign travelers abruptly dropped to zero and domestic tourists stayed home for fear of infections,” communications official Tracy Lee (李明穎) said by telephone yesterday.
Occupancy rates averaged 80 percent so far in the summer, recovering from 20 to 30 percent at the 41-year-old facility on Minquan E Road, one of Taiwan’s first five-star facilities, Lee said.
Taiwan’s quick control of the novel coronavirus outbreak, and assorted promotions and discount offers helped restore interest in domestic travel while the nation continues to keep foreign travelers out, Lee said.
The authorities have extended a ban on inbound and outbound travel until the end of next month due to soaring infections in most parts of the world.
Revenue from food and beverage sales almost recovered to pre-pandemic levels, after holding relatively resilient during the outbreak, Lee said.
The virus crisis has had a limited effect on Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant Tien Hsiang Lo (天香樓), fine-dining Paris 1930 (巴黎廳) and more affordable La Brasserie (巴賽麗廳), thanks to their gastronomic credentials, Lee added.
Particularly, Tien Hsiang Lo, which has won one-star Michelin recognition for two consecutive years, has been popular among gourmets, she said.
Despite the improvement, revenue declines are inevitable, as border controls are set to stay in pace for a while, Lee said.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) last week said that he is seeking to extend wage subsidies by another three to six months for hotels that rely heavily on foreign travelers.
Lin asked domestic travelers to patronize star-grade facilities in northern Taiwan in the meantime.
A package featuring room rates of NT$3,999 per night with equivalent gift vouchers has proven to be most popular among clients, Lee said.
The group would maintain a conservative business approach after shutting down Landis Taichung in March and the Tayih Landis Hotel Tainan (台南大億麗緻酒店) last month, she said.
Pause Landis Resorts (璞石麗緻溫泉會館) in New Taipei City’s Wulai District (烏來) is undergoing renovation, she added.
The group has not discussed whether to further downsize after summer, Lee said.
Industry leaders have said that many hotels in Taipei could exit the market if recovery remained elusive.
STRONG INTEREST: Analysts have pointed to optimism in TSMC’s growth prospects in the artificial intelligence era as the cause of the rising number of shareholders The number of people holding shares of chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) hit a new high last week despite a decline in its stock price, the Taiwan Depository and Clearing Corp (TDCC, 台灣集保) said. The number of TSMC shareholders rose to 2.46 million as of Friday, up 75,536 from a week earlier, TDCC data showed. The stock price fell 1.34 percent during the same week to close at NT$1,840 (US$57.55). The decline in TSMC’s share price resulted from volatility in global tech stocks, driven by rising international crude oil prices as the war against Iran continues. Dealers said
PRICE HIKES: The war in the Middle East would not significantly disrupt supply in the short term, but semiconductor companies are facing price surges for materials Taiwan’s semiconductor companies are not facing imminent supply disruptions of essential chemicals or raw materials due to the war in the Middle East, but surges in material costs loom large, industry association SEMI Taiwan said yesterday. The association’s comments came amid growing concerns that supplies of helium and other key raw materials used in semiconductor production could become a choke point after Qatar shut down its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and helium output earlier this month due to the conflict. Qatar is the second-largest LNG supplier in the world and accounts for about 33 percent of global helium output. Helium is
China is clamping down on fertilizer exports to protect its domestic market, industry sources said, putting an additional strain on global markets that were already grappling with shortages caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran. China is among the largest fertilizer exporters — shipping more than US$13 billion of it last year — and it has a history of controlling exports to keep prices low for farmers. Shipments through the war-blocked Strait of Hormuz account for about one-third of the sea-borne supply. This month, Beijing banned exports of nitrogen-potassium fertilizer blends and certain phosphate varieties, sources said. The ban, which has not
AMAZING ABUNDANCE: Elon Musk has announced plans for a new facility in Texas which would manufacture chips for Tesla and SpaceX to use in robotics and AI Elon Musk said his Terafab project — a grand plan to eventually manufacture his own chips for robotics, artificial intelligence (AI) and space data centers — would be built in Austin and jointly run by Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX). Musk, the chief executive officer of the two companies, said he would start off with an “advanced technology fab” in Austin that would have all of the equipment necessary to make chips of any kind. The project would call for one day supporting 1 terawatt (TW) of computing power per year, the amount Musk expects the companies to
RSS