Holiday Garden Hotel (華園飯店), the nation’s first international tourist hotel, is to close one of its outlets next month, succumbing to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The hospitality group, which owns two properties in Kaohsiung and five others in California, announced on its Web site on Thursday evening that it is to shutter the outlet near Liuhe Night Market (六合夜市) on Aug. 31.
The closure will not affect the property near the Taroko Park Shopping Center, which has been turned into a quarantine hotel.
“Following a review of our portfolio and development strategy, we have decided to end the operation of Holiday Garden Hotel Liuhe,” the group said, asking people to patronize its Taroko outlet instead.
The company on July 7 sold the property near the night market to Yong Shou Investment Co (永碩投資), the main stakeholder of Yong Hsin Construction Co (永信建設), for NT$2.7 billion (US$96.41 million), yielding it a net profit of NT$1.9 billion, or earnings of NT$17.21 per share.
Occupancy rates at Holiday Garden averaged 27.95 percent in the first quarter, with the daily room rate averaging NT$1,734, Bureau of Tourism data showed.
Revenue was NT$23.54 million, down 43 percent from a year earlier, company data showed.
Holiday Garden’s performance, the worst among 11 peers in Kaohsiung, deteriorated further after authorities raised the COVID-19 alert to level 3 in May, driving domestic tourism to a sudden halt.
Since its founding 63 years ago, Holiday Garden Liuhe has been a popular meeting place for socialites and celebrities. The hotel’s founder, Chen Zhi-pei (陳植佩), built the property of 270 guest rooms to support the government’s Invest Taiwan policy targeting overseas Chinese.
In 1973, Holiday Garden briefly joined the Holiday Inn chain to boost its business, but ended the partnership later.
The company said it remains upbeat about the hospitality industry at home and abroad, and would rebound after the world emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The company reported revenue of NT$741 million last year and losses of NT$2.45 per share, widening from losses of NT$0.04 per share in 2019. Strict border controls have weighed on the earnings of hotels reliant on foreign tourists.
Holiday Garden shares slid 0.88 percent to close at NT$28 in Taipei trading yesterday, underperforming the main board’s 0.77 percent decline, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
SEMICONDUCTOR SERVICES: A company executive said that Taiwanese firms must think about how to participate in global supply chains and lift their competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it expects to launch its first multifunctional service center in Pingtung County in the middle of 2027, in a bid to foster a resilient high-tech facility construction ecosystem. TSMC broached the idea of creating a center two or three years ago when it started building new manufacturing capacity in the US and Japan, the company said. The center, dubbed an “ecosystem park,” would assist local manufacturing facility construction partners to upgrade their capabilities and secure more deals from other global chipmakers such as Intel Corp, Micron Technology Inc and Infineon Technologies AG, TSMC said. It
EXPORT GROWTH: The AI boom has shortened chip cycles to just one year, putting pressure on chipmakers to accelerate development and expand packaging capacity Developing a localized supply chain for advanced packaging equipment is critical for keeping pace with customers’ increasingly shrinking time-to-market cycles for new artificial intelligence (AI) chips, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said yesterday. Spurred on by the AI revolution, customers are accelerating product upgrades to nearly every year, compared with the two to three-year development cadence in the past, TSMC vice president of advanced packaging technology and service Jun He (何軍) said at a 3D IC Global Summit organized by SEMI in Taipei. These shortened cycles put heavy pressure on chipmakers, as the entire process — from chip design to mass
Germany is to establish its first-ever national pavilion at Semicon Taiwan, which starts tomorrow in Taipei, as the country looks to raise its profile and deepen semiconductor ties with Taiwan as global chip demand accelerates. Martin Mayer, a semiconductor investment expert at Germany Trade & Invest (GTAI), Germany’s international economic promotion agency, said before leaving for Taiwan that the nation is a crucial partner in developing Germany’s semiconductor ecosystem. Germany’s debut at the international semiconductor exhibition in Taipei aims to “show presence” and signal its commitment to semiconductors, while building trust with Taiwanese companies, government and industry associations, he said. “The best outcome
Semiconductor equipment billings in Taiwan are expected to double this year, as manufacturers in the industry are keen to expand production to meet strong global demand for artificial intelligence applications, according to SEMI, which represents companies in the electronics manufacturing and design supply chain. Speaking at a news conference before the opening of Semicon Taiwan trade show tomorrow, SEMI director of industry research and statistics Clark Tseng (曾瑞榆) said semiconductor equipment billings in Taiwan are expected to grow by an annual 100 percent this year, beating an earlier estimate of 70 percent growth. He said that Taiwan received a boost from a
RSS