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.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said it plans to ship its new 1 megawatt charging systems for electric trucks and buses in the first half of next year at the earliest. The new charging piles, which deliver up to 1 megawatt of charging power, are designed for heavy-duty electric vehicles, and support a maximum current of 1,500 amperes and output of 1,250 volts, Delta said in a news release. “If everything goes smoothly, we could begin shipping those new charging systems as early as in the first half of next year,” a company official said. The new
RSS