The Taipei 101 Observatory could see its visitor numbers tumble to a record low this year, as border controls have reduced foreign tourist arrivals, its main supply of customers.
The number of visits might drop below 500,000 this year, less than 25 percent of the 2 million visits reported last year, said Angela Chang (張振亞), president of Taipei Financial Center Corp (TFCC, 台北金融大樓), which operates the skyscraper.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, foreign tourists contributed 80 percent of visits to the observatory, dubbed the nation’s hottest tourist spot.
Photo: Bloomberg
Like tourist hotels in Taipei, the observatory has shifted its focus to domestic visitors and the strategy, coupled with reduced admission fees, resulted in there being 220,000 visits during the June-to-August period, Chang said.
Taiwanese now make up 99 percent of its visitors, she said.
The observatory is seeking to bolster business by extending its discounts through this year, with tickets costing NT$300 per adult and NT$190 per senior citizen, Chang said, adding that adult visitors may take two children under the age of 12 with them free of charge.
The arrangement is intended to attract families, she said, after a promotion campaign that lowered admission fees to NT$150 per person expired yesterday.
Domestic visitors might not completely fill the void left by foreign tourists, Taiwan Ratings Corp (中華信評) said earlier, after downgrading the credit outlook for TFCC from “stable” to “negative.”
The ratings agency said that international travel would remain muted as the number of COVID-19 infections is still on the rise worldwide.
Border controls would reduce the number of visitors to the observatory and its observation deck, denting its revenue by up to 80 percent this year, the ratings agency said.
Visitors to the observatory rose to a record high of 2.8 million in 2015, but dropped by 10 percent in each of the following years due to chilling cross-strait ties.
Chinese tourists used to make up the biggest chunk of visitors, followed by tourists from Japan and South Korea, Chang said.
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
VERTICAL INTEGRATION: The US fabless company’s acquisition of the data center manufacturer would not affect market competition, the Fair Trade Commission said The Fair Trade Commission has approved Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) bid to fully acquire ZT International Group Inc for US$4.9 billion, saying it would not hamper market competition. As AMD is a fabless company that designs central processing units (CPUs) used in consumer electronics and servers, while ZT is a data center manufacturer, the vertical integration would not affect market competition, the commission said in a statement yesterday. ZT counts hyperscalers such as Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Google among its major clients and plays a minor role in deciding the specifications of data centers, given the strong bargaining power of
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
RSS