Occupancy rates averaged 64.14 percent for international tourist hotels in Taipei in July, while daily room rates stood at NT$4,445, the Tourism Bureau said on its Web site last week.
The latest occupancy data marked a 4.17 percent retreat from the same month last year, while room dates dropped 2.5 percent, signs of a challenge for the industry as the economy slows and competition sharpens.
STANDARD HOTELS
Standard hotels fared slightly better, with occupancy rates slowing from 72.24 percent to 71.65 percent in July from the same month last year, while daily room rates stood at NT$3,433, almost unchanged from NT$3,440 a year earlier, bureau figures showed.
The retreat is more evident at scenic areas across Taiwan, where international hotels recorded occupancy rates of 62.89 percent, down from 70.56 percent a year earlier, the figures showed.
Standard hotels in scenic areas saw occupancy rates little changed at 48.09 percent, compared with 48.67 percent a year earlier, government figures showed.
SCENIC AREAS
Hoteliers charged higher rates in scenic areas this year.
On average, lodging costs rose from NT$7,035 to NT$7,219 at international tourist hotels and spiked about 60 percent to NT$4,604 at standard hotels, the bureau said.
Cosmos Hotel Taipei (台北天成大飯店) outperformed its peers nationwide with a 97.18 percent occupancy rate, the bureau said.
Grand Mayfull Hotel Taipei (台北美福大飯店) scored the lowest rate of 7.05 percent, worse than Grand View Resort (北投麗禧溫泉酒店) at 36.07 percent and Hotel Royal Beitou (北投老爺酒店) at 25.87 percent, it said.
Summer is a low season for hot-spring facilities.
SPEED OF LIGHT: US lawmakers urged the commerce department to examine the national security threats from China’s development of silicon photonics technology US President Joe Biden’s administration on Monday said it is finalizing rules that would limit US investments in artificial intelligence (AI) and other technology sectors in China that could threaten US national security. The rules, which were proposed in June by the US Department of the Treasury, were directed by an executive order signed by Biden in August last year covering three key sectors: semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technologies and certain AI systems. The rules are to take effect on Jan. 2 next year and would be overseen by the Treasury’s newly created Office of Global Transactions. The Treasury said the “narrow
SPECULATION: The central bank cut the loan-to-value ratio for mortgages on second homes by 10 percent and denied grace periods to prevent a real-estate bubble The central bank’s board members in September agreed to tighten lending terms to induce a soft landing in the housing market, although some raised doubts that they would achieve the intended effect, the meeting’s minutes released yesterday showed. The central bank on Sept. 18 introduced harsher loan restrictions for mortgages across Taiwan in the hope of curbing housing speculation and hoarding that could create a bubble and threaten the financial system’s stability. Toward the aim, it cut the loan-to-value ratio by 10 percent for second and subsequent home mortgages and denied grace periods for first mortgages if applicants already owned other residential
EXPORT CONTROLS: US lawmakers have grown more concerned that the US Department of Commerce might not be aggressively enforcing its chip restrictions The US on Friday said it imposed a US$500,000 penalty on New York-based GlobalFoundries Inc, the world’s third-largest contract chipmaker, for shipping chips without authorization to an affiliate of blacklisted Chinese chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯). The US Department of Commerce in a statement said GlobalFoundries sent 74 shipments worth US$17.1 million to SJ Semiconductor Corp (盛合晶微半導體), an affiliate of SMIC, without seeking a license. Both SMIC and SJ Semiconductor were added to the department’s trade restriction Entity List in 2020 over SMIC’s alleged ties to the Chinese military-industrial complex. SMIC has denied wrongdoing. Exports to firms on the list
ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip assembly and testing manufacturing (ATM) service provider, expects to double its leading-edge advanced technology services revenue next year to more than US$1 billion, benefiting from strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips, a company executive said on Thursday. That would be the second year that ASE has doubled its advanced chip packaging and testing technology revenue, following an estimate of more than US$500 million for this year. ASE is one of the major beneficiaries from the AI boom as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is outsourcing production of advanced chip