As the government gradually eases travel entry restrictions, the number of inbound and outbound tourists from various countries has been increasing. Taiwan has officially entered the post-pandemic era with a relaxation of entry restrictions. With quarantine hotels becoming obsolete, there is an urgent need for transformation in the local hotel industry to boost tourism in Taipei City.
The Department of Information and Tourism of the Taipei City Government joined hands with the Dream Travel Taiwan Association to host a training course on hotel industry transformation. The course is aimed at strengthening the resilience of the hotel industry and predicting trends. The participants responded that they have gained a great deal of knowledge from the lectures and experience shared by professionals from the fields of industry, government and academia.
To promote recovery of the tourism industry, the “2022 Annual Taipei City Hotel Industry Transformation Course and Site Visits” was held over five sessions since October to train hundreds of hotel practitioners. The Taipei Department of Information and Tourism focused on four major aspects of transformation — sustainability, international hospitality, digital application and innovative marketing.
In addition to reiterating guidelines for cleanliness, the course this year also focused on the reception of foreign guests to improve service quality and broadening the participants’ knowledge of international trends. The informative sessions garnered high praise from participants.
Taipei Department of Information and Tourism Commissioner Liu Yi-ting (劉奕霆) said that to keep up with the global trend of sustainable development, the Taipei government passed legislation to achieve a net-zero emissions target by 2050 in June this year, becoming the country’s first local government to make such a commitment.
Taipei strives to promote the city’s net-zero transition, and moves toward a future of carbon neutrality in step with the world. However, a shortage of labor in the hotel sector continues during recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Hotels at home and abroad have begun to widely use automated devices for reception, food delivery and cleaning. Demonstrating such technology, professionals showed how digital solutions can help hotel owners deal with lower staffing levels.
To show how services targeted to foreign guests can be strengthened, the course invited international tour guides to talk about the best ways to welcome overseas visitors. There were also courses to teaching how to promote the charms of Taiwan, and how to digitally upgrade hotel software and hardware.
Other courses included the application of big data and NFT in tourism, hotel hygiene and safety, branding, and consumer complaint resolution, which were targeted at meeting the industry’s needs coming out of the pandemic.
Liu said that Taiwan has once again ranked second in the Global Muslim Tourism Index this year. Since 2019, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism has been promoting related programs, continuously enhancing a program to create a Muslim-friendly environment, and bolstering tourist attractions and the hotel industry in Taipei.
It has been four years since the department began improving facilities necessary for Muslim religious life, such as eating and praying. Many five-star hotels and quarantine hotel operators are optimistic about tourism recovery, as the phase of pandemic prevention comes to an end. Hotels all actively joined the mentoring program in the middle of the year, and look forward to the return of tourism prosperity.
(Advertorial)
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
Netherlands-based semiconductor equipment supplier ASML Holding NV yesterday said that it is planning to hire an additional 1,000 people in Taiwan this year in response to growing demand from clients. ASML had previously planned to recruit 600 people this year, but that the plan has been adjusted upward, ASML vice president and ASML Taiwan general manager Grace Wang (汪佳慧) told reporters. ASML has a workforce of more than 4,500 in Taiwan, accounting for about 10 percent of its global total, Wang said. This year’s recruitment campaign would focus on adding people in the customer support, manufacturing and supply chain domains to assist ASML
Nvidia Corp yesterday announced that CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) would attend an employee meeting in Taipei tomorrow to celebrate the launch of the company’s Taiwan headquarters project. Huang would attend a gathering at the site of Nvidia’s planned headquarters in Beitou Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區), the company said in a statement. After arriving in Taiwan on Saturday last week, Huang told reporters that he plans to meet with Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), and would attend the groundbreaking ceremony for Nvidia’s Taiwan headquarters tomorrow. Nvidia has not yet applied