Occupancy rates at quarantine hotels has dropped amid an increase in the number of such facilities, hotel operators said on Monday.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications has announced that 20,000 additional hotel rooms would be reserved for quarantine to increase capacity.
However, as of Sunday, the average occupancy rate at quarantine hotels had dropped to 39 percent from 59.7 percent on May 19, when the government raised the nationwide COVID-19 alert to level 3.
“We feel like we have been swindled by the government in being asked to convert to quarantine hotels,” one hotelier said.
The situation was likely caused by a relaxation in home quarantine rules allowing one person per room, instead of one person per household, and an entry ban on foreign nationals without a valid resident certificate, a source at the ministry said.
Taiwanese returning from abroad have also been unwilling to stay at the more expensive quarantine hotels, the source said.
There were about 18,000 rooms at quarantine hotels after the Lunar New Year holiday, the source added.
Occupancy fell after a community outbreak on May 10, the source said, adding that it had rebounded to 59.7 percent by May 19, when it fell again with the announcement of the level 3 alert.
Despite the decline, the ministry continued with its plan to add 20,000 quarantine hotel rooms, which brought occupancy rates to new lows, the source said.
“In Taipei, occupancy was already less than 20 percent. When they said they would add 20,000 rooms, everyone thought it was ridiculous,” New Taipei City Hotel Association chairwoman Tseng Mei-chuan (曾美絹) said.
Quarantine hotels generated most of their income from guests arriving from abroad, but now that the border is closed, they have lost that income stream, she said.
Taiwanese living abroad are reluctant to return home given the outbreak, Tseng added.
Hanns House — a quarantine hotel in Taipei’s upscale Xinyi District (信義) — said that although the number of Taiwanese undergoing quarantine has increased, the majority of them stay at central quarantine facilities, with very few choosing the more expensive quarantine hotels.
Check Inn — a quarantine hotel in Taipei’s Zhongshan District (中山) — said its close proximity to an MRT station had previously meant it was at 90 percent or fully booked at all times.
However, bookings for this month have fallen to 40 percent, it said.
“The government is having trouble keeping up with the speed of the outbreak,” the hotel said, citing a worker who had been in close contact with an infected person, but did not receive a notice to undergo quarantine and receive a government-paid COVID-19 test.
“The worker came to us on their own and said they should quarantine. The experience has caused concern among employees,” it said.
STRONG RELATIONSHIPS: China would not blockade Taiwan, because President Xi respects him, and Russia would not have invaded if he were president, he said Former US president and the Republican candidate in next month’s presidential election Donald Trump said he would impose additional tariffs on China if China were to “go into Taiwan,” the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported. “I would say: If you go into Taiwan, I’m sorry to do this, I’m going to tax you, at 150 percent to 200 percent,” Trump was quoted as saying in an interview with the WSJ published on Friday. Asked if he would use military force against a blockade on Taiwan by China, Trump said it would not come to that because Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) respected
The Taipei Department of Transportation discouraged YouBike 2.0E users from taking them on long-distance trips after a Taipei city councilor said that riders often use the new electric bike, YouBike 2.0E, to climb Yangmingshan (陽明山). Taipei earlier this year began offering the first 30 minutes of YouBike 2.0 rentals for free, with Taipei and New Taipei offering the YouBike 2.0E on Aug. 30 to encourage rider usage. For YouBike 2.0, the rate is NT$10 per 30 minutes within the first four hours, NT$20 per 30 minutes for five to eight hours and NT$40 per 30 minutes after eight hours. Meanwhile, for e-bikes,
RESOURCE RICH: Taiwan is located in the Pacific Ring of Fire and has up to 30 gigawatts of the potential energy, of which 10 gigawatts could be economically viable Academia Sinica and CPC Corp yesterday began drilling the nation’s first deep geothermal well in Yilan County’s Yuanshan Township (員山). The 4km-deep well is expected to take 18 months to complete and has an estimated investment of NT$337 million (US$10.54 million), Academia Sinica President James Liao (廖俊智) said. “While Taiwan has up to 30 gigawatts of potential deep geothermal energy, with an estimated 10 gigawatts being economically viable, only by digging wells can we determine the actual amount of commercially viable geothermal energy,” Liao said at the project’s opening ceremony. Data collected during and after the excavation process would be used for future
HACKERS’ MARKET: Chat logs about Taiwan and documents outlining ways to take over online accounts were leaked from a company that sells data from hacks Taiwanese cybersecurity specialists found 577 leaked documents which show that the Chinese Communist Party is engaging in “cognitive warfare” against Taiwan through cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns, a documentary released last month by Japanese public broadcaster NHK showed. The filmmakers behind Tracking China’s Leaked Documents said they spent six months visiting seven countries, including Taiwan, where they interviewed members of TeamT5, a malware research and cybersecurity firm, which found the leaked documents. TeamT5 said they discovered a string of mysterious URLs on the social media platform X, which they suspected could be accounts created by hackers or people who leaked data, which led