Hordes of people descended upon the 2009 Taichung Summer Travel Fair yesterday, looking for bargains among a wide variety of discounted tour packages.
By the time World Trade Center Taichung opened its doors for the show yesterday morning, a long line of people extending all the way to a nearby road had built up, causing serious traffic congestion in the surrounding neighborhood.
Many visitors said they were looking for an interesting but inexpensive tour package suitable for a summer vacation for the whole family.
Huang Lin-huei (黃琳惠), a project manager of Taichung-based Bosstar International Co (博思達) — the fair’s organizer — said that most of the travel agencies participating in the three-day fair that opened on Friday were offering discounted domestic and overseas tour packages to attract buyers.
For example, Huang said, a seven-day tour to Thailand and Hong Kong was being offered for NT$18,000 per adult, with children enjoying a further reduction of NT$4,000 per person.
As to local tours, “paying the same price for a bed and breakfast as in the past, you can now not only have the bed and breakfast, but also a free afternoon tea, a visit to a hot spring and extra tour guide services,” Huang said. “The packages really offer big incentives.”
Affected by the global outbreak of a new strain of swine flu, known as influenza A(H1N1), the overseas travel market declined by 30 percent last month, but the domestic market grew by between 10 percent and 20 percent, Huang said, adding that there were signs showing that overseas travel was slowly recovering.
More than 150 local and foreign travel business operators, including Star Cruises, have set up 250 booths at the annual travel fair.
They are promoting services ranging from stays at hot spring hotels or upscale business hostels and rural tour packages to leisure-oriented and bicycle-related treks and overseas honeymoon packages, Bosstar said.
EARLY TALKS: Measures under consideration include convincing allies to match US curbs, further restricting exports of AI chips or GPUs, and blocking Chinese investments US President Donald Trump’s administration is sketching out tougher versions of US semiconductor curbs and pressuring key allies to escalate their restrictions on China’s chip industry, an early indication the new US president plans to expand efforts that began under former US president Joe Biden to limit Beijing’s technological prowess. Trump officials recently met with their Japanese and Dutch counterparts about restricting Tokyo Electron Ltd and ASML Holding NV engineers from maintaining semiconductor gear in China, people familiar with the matter said. The aim, which was also a priority for Biden, is to see key allies match China curbs the US
The popular Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) arbitrage trade might soon see a change in dynamics that could affect the trading of the US listing versus the local one. And for anyone who wants to monetize the elevated premium, Goldman Sachs Group Inc highlights potential trades. A note from the bank’s sales desk published on Friday said that demand for TSMC’s Taipei-traded stock could rise as Taiwan’s regulator is considering an amendment to local exchange-traded funds’ (ETFs) ownership. The changes, which could come in the first half of this year, could push up the current 30 percent single-stock weight limit
Teleperformance SE, the largest call-center operator in the world, is rolling out an artificial intelligence (AI) system that softens English-speaking Indian workers’ accents in real time in a move the company claims would make them more understandable. The technology, called accent translation, coupled with background noise cancelation, is being deployed in call centers in India, where workers provide customer support to some of Teleperformance’s international clients. The company provides outsourced customer support and content moderation to global companies including Apple Inc, ByteDance Ltd’s (字節跳動) TikTok and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. “When you have an Indian agent on the line, sometimes it’s hard
PROTECTION: The investigation, which takes aim at exporters such as Canada, Germany and Brazil, came days after Trump unveiled tariff hikes on steel and aluminum products US President Donald Trump on Saturday ordered a probe into potential tariffs on lumber imports — a move threatening to stoke trade tensions — while also pushing for a domestic supply boost. Trump signed an executive order instructing US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick to begin an investigation “to determine the effects on the national security of imports of timber, lumber and their derivative products.” The study might result in new tariffs being imposed, which would pile on top of existing levies. The investigation takes aim at exporters like Canada, Germany and Brazil, with White House officials earlier accusing these economies of
RSS