Ambassador Hotel Ltd (國賓大飯店集團), one of Taiwan’s listed hotels, launched its first budget hotel in Taipei yesterday, aiming to reach its break-even point within seven years by eyeing independent travelers from Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and Malaysia.
The hotel — Amba Taipei Ximending (台北西門町意舍) — will begin its one-month trial operations on Saturday, with formal operations scheduled to begin on Feb. 23.
“Located in Ximending, a place full of rich cultural and tourism resources, we hope the hotel can attract tourists between the ages of 30 and 45,” Amba president Teresa Huang (黃絢霞) told a media briefing.
The increasing number of independent travelers to Taiwan and the success of Just Sleep (捷絲旅), a budget hotel launched by Formosa International Hotels Corp (FIHC, 晶華國際酒店集團) in 2009, gave Ambassador Hotel the inspiration to launch a new budget-conscious brand.
In 2010, Ambassador Hotel signed a contract with Eslite Corp (誠品) to rent one of Eslite’s properties in Ximending in downtown Taipei to build its first budget hotel.
Ambassador Hotel and China Prosperity Development Corp (中欣開發), a subsidiary of China Steel Corp (中鋼), invested a total of NT$350 million (US$11.67 million) for Amba Taipei Ximending, with Ambassador Hotel holding a 60 percent stake and China Prosperity holding the remaining 40 percent share.
Huang said the occupancy rate for the hotel’s rooms would reach 70 to 80 percent in the first year based on a conservative estimate, while most of the hotels located in Ximending have an 80 to 90 percent occupancy rate.
“With an average occupancy rate of 75 percent and an average room price of NT$3,200, the hotel aims at reaching break-even point, which means to earn back the total investment amount, in seven years,” Huang said.
Even though the tourism sector is poised to benefit from closer relations with China after President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) won a second term in office on Saturday, Huang said Chinese tourists would not be Amba’s primary target, as most travelers from China still travel in tour groups.
Huang said she expected tourists from Hong Kong and Macau would make up about 40 percent of the hotel’s customers in the initial stage, followed by 20 to 30 percent from Singapore and Malaysia.
Ambassador Hotel said it would keep looking for appropriate locations to build more hotels under the Amba brand.
The second Amba Taipei hotel is expected to open in 2014. The location would be near Songshan Railway Station, involving potential investors such as Ambassador Hotel and Ruentex Group (潤泰集團), the Amba president said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said that its investment plan in Arizona is going according to schedule, following a local media report claiming that the company is planning to break ground on its third wafer fab in the US in June. In a statement, TSMC said it does not comment on market speculation, but that its investments in Arizona are proceeding well. TSMC is investing more than US$65 billion in Arizona to build three advanced wafer fabs. The first one has started production using the 4-nanometer (nm) process, while the second one would start mass production using the
A TAIWAN DEAL: TSMC is in early talks to fully operate Intel’s US semiconductor factories in a deal first raised by Trump officials, but Intel’s interest is uncertain Broadcom Inc has had informal talks with its advisers about making a bid for Intel Corp’s chip-design and marketing business, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Nothing has been submitted to Intel and Broadcom could decide not to pursue a deal, according to the Journal. Bloomberg News earlier reported that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is in early talks for a controlling stake in Intel’s factories at the request of officials at US President Donald Trump’s administration, as the president looks to boost US manufacturing and maintain the country’s leadership in critical technologies. Trump officials raised the
‘SILVER LINING’: Although the news caused TSMC to fall on the local market, an analyst said that as tariffs are not set to go into effect until April, there is still time for negotiations US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would likely impose tariffs on semiconductor, automobile and pharmaceutical imports of about 25 percent, with an announcement coming as soon as April 2 in a move that would represent a dramatic widening of the US leader’s trade war. “I probably will tell you that on April 2, but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25 percent,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club when asked about his plan for auto tariffs. Asked about similar levies on pharmaceutical drugs and semiconductors, the president said that “it’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll
CHIP BOOM: Revenue for the semiconductor industry is set to reach US$1 trillion by 2032, opening up opportunities for the chip pacakging and testing company, it said ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控), the world’s largest provider of outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) services, yesterday launched a new advanced manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia, aiming to meet growing demand for emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The US$300 million facility is a critical step in expanding ASE’s global footprint, offering an alternative for customers from the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and China to assemble and test chips outside of Taiwan amid efforts to diversify supply chains. The plant, the company’s fifth in Malaysia, is part of a strategic expansion plan that would more than triple
RSS