Local travel agencies have canceled tours and restaurants have suspended operations or begun offering takeout services amid a freeze in business as people stay at home to avoid COVID-19 infection.
The hospitality and tourism sectors are bearing the brunt of a spike in local infections after authorities raised the COVID-19 alert to level 3 for Taipei and New Taipei City over the weekend and advised against gatherings or going out.
Lion Travel Service Co (雄獅旅遊), South East Travel Service Co (東南旅遊) and ezTravel Co (易遊網) have canceled group tours within Taiwan and to offshore destinations until June 8, without extra charges to travelers, to help combat the virus outbreak.
Photo: CNA
Travel agencies, which have not yet emerged from the negative effects of the pandemic due to border controls, are now facing financial stress as domestic tourism has also come to a halt.
Lion Travel said safety is of top concern and it would cooperate with pandemic control measures.
Similarly, South East Travel said it would protect the interests of travelers and make adjustments in line with the government’s virus control measures.
Online travel agency ezTravel said it would not charge cancelation fees from customers who cancel train, cruise, airplane or bus trips.
Luxury hotel Le Meridien Taipei (台北寒舍艾美酒店) and the Ambassador Hotel (國賓飯店) have temporarily shut down their buffet restaurants and banquet facilities, while the Grand Hyatt Taipei (台北君悅大飯店) has closed its Japanese, Italian and Cantonese restaurants until June 8 and restarted drive-through service for takeout orders.
The nation’s largest restaurant chain operator Wowprime Corp (王品) has closed its hot pot brand 12 Sabu (石二鍋), Tasty (西堤) and Japanese restaurant Ikki (藝奇) in Taipei’s hardest-hit district, Wanhua (萬華), and New Taipei City’s Lujhou District (蘆洲).
In addition, 100 outlets under different brands in the two cities have stopped offering dine-in services and are only offering takeout services until Friday next week.
Wowprime also owns Wang Steak (王品牛排), barbecue restaurant chain Yakiyan (原燒), teppanyaki brand Chamonix (夏慕尼) and Tokiya (陶板屋).
Properties outside Taipei and New Taipei City would reduce capacity, take diners’ temperatures and require identification to help with contact tracing if needed, it said.
McDonald’s Taiwan also halted dine-in services at all of its restaurants in major cities in northern Taiwan until Friday next week, saying it would offer take-out and delivery services during the period.
Similarly, Feast & Food Gourmet Group (饗賓餐旅集團) said all of the restaurants operating under its seven brands in Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan would stop dine-in services, and only offer take-out and delivery services during the period.
The brands are Eatogether (饗食天堂), Kaifun (開飯), Guo Ran Hui (果然匯), Siam More (饗泰多), Inparadise (饗饗), Sunrise (旭集) and Jin-zhu (真珠).
The group said it offers a 10 percent discount for take-out and delivery with a minimum order of NT$1,000.
Additional reporting by CNA
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
RSS