Hotel Royal Group (老爺大酒店集團) is to shut down a property in Yilan County’s Wujie Township (五結) under the Place brand when its management contract expires in August, succumbing to a business freeze amid a level 3 COVID-19 alert.
The Place Yilan (宜蘭傳藝老爺行旅), which is within the National Center for Traditional Arts (宜蘭傳藝中心), is the second hotel to exit the market this year after Fullon Hotel Taipei (福容大飯店台北一館).
The Place Yilan started operations in April 2017 under a management contract with Pxmart Co Ltd (全聯實業).
Photo courtesy of The Place Yilan
The hotel’s four conference rooms, a cafe and a restaurant are to close on Aug. 22 after a ban on dine-in services and restrictions on gatherings put them in abeyance.
“We have decided not to renew the contract that is due to expire on Aug. 31 out of concern that hotel operations might not return to normalcy any time soon,” Hotel Royal Group said in a statement on Monday.
People with reservations after Aug. 31 can seek full refunds and those with hotel and restaurant vouchers can redeem at other locations, the group said.
It would help employees to find work at other properties or provide compensations in accordance with labor requirements, it said.
The hospitality industry has relied entirely on domestic tourism for the past one-and-a-half years due to lingering border controls, but domestic tourism also came to a sudden halt after authorities raised the COVID-19 alert to level 3 nationwide on May 19 to curb the spread of local infections.
The group said it would press ahead with operations at 10 other properties under the Place, Hotel Royal (老爺酒店) and Royal Inn (老爺會館) brands, and four properties in Palau, Vietnam, Mauritius and Nicaragua.
Pxmart, which has a 15-year lease from the Yilan County Government to run the cultural and recreational park, said it would look for other parties to fill the space left by The Place Yilan.
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