“Marriot, W Hotels to Add Rooms in Taiwan on China Travel Boom”

Marriot, W Hotels to Add Rooms in Taiwan on China Travel Boom

Posted: 12 Aug 2010 09:51 PM PDT

August 12, 2010, 9:45 PM EDT

By Chinmei Sung

(Updates with comment from China tourism official from 15th paragraph.)

Aug. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Marriott International Inc., the largest U.S. lodging chain, and other groups including Le Meridien and W Hotels, plan to open their first hotels in Taiwan as they compete to cater for rising numbers of Chinese tourists.

Marriott is working with Taiwanese businessman B. V. Riu, owner of Taipei-based luxury hotel Sherwood, on a NT$6.2 billion ($195 million), 352-room lodging franchise agreement, Victor Chou, president of Sherwood, said. Le Meridien and W Hotels, both owned by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., also plan to open premises in the city this year.

Visitors from China may surpass those from Japan to become Taiwan's No. 1 source of arrivals this year, as relaxed rules spur travel to an island that has been off limits to mainland Chinese for 60 years. International hotel chains and local developers in Taiwan plan to invest NT$83 billion building 45 hotels and resorts, adding 10,865 rooms, in the next three years, the island's tourism bureau said on its website.

"There is plenty of room for Chinese tourism to grow," Ma Tieying, a Singapore-based economist at DBS Group Holdings Ltd. said by phone. "Direct flights between China and Taiwan will also boost cross-strait business traffic, and these businessmen and corporate clients will also trigger demand for hotel rooms."

China overtook France last year as the world's fourth- largest source of travel expenditure, according to the United Nation's World Tourism Organization. Germany was the biggest, followed by the U.S. and the U.K. About 54 million Chinese may travel abroad this year, the China National Tourism Administration forecast.

Increased Spending

Travelers from mainland China -- excluding Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau -- increased their spending 21 percent to $43.7 billion last year as worldwide tourism expenditure fell 9.6 percent to $852 billion, the UN agency said.

"We are going to build a comprehensive complex for leisure, convention and exhibitions," Chou said in an interview from Taipei this week. "We want to be there for the cross-strait travel boom." The developer will break ground on the hotel on Sept. 9, Chou said.

Le Meridien is working with Shin Kong Financial Holding Co.'s life insurance arm on its Taipei property, said Christina Yeh, section chief at the Taiwan tourism bureau's hotel division. The 160-room hotel, located near the Taipei 101, the world's second-tallest building, is scheduled to start operating on Nov. 1, according to Starwood's website.

W Hotels is working with Uni-President Group, which owns the operator of 7-Eleven and Starbucks in Taiwan. The hotel will have 403 rooms and is expected to open in December, Yeh said.

Starwood didn't immediately reply to e-mails seeking comments.

Japanese Toppled

Taiwan dropped a ban on Chinese tourists in July 2008, two months after President Ma Ying-jeou took office and abandoned his predecessor's pro-independence stance.

The island will receive 1.2 million tourists and businesspeople from China, exceeding the forecast 1.13 million Japanese, in 2010, Yuan Kai-zhi, who works at the tourism bureau's international division in Taipei, said in April. Japan, which ruled Taiwan for 50 years until its defeat in World War II, has been the No. 1 source of visitors since records began in 1964.

Taiwan plans to ease restrictions and let individual Chinese visit Taiwan from January, Taiwan's top negotiator with China Chiang Pin-kung said in an interview last month. Taiwan issues visas for Chinese tourist groups, not individuals.

Shao Qiwei, China's tourism director, said the nation will study a plan to allow individual tourists to visit Taiwan. The announcement came in Taipei in May when Shao opened the mainland's first official tourism office on the island.

High-Profile Campaign

China will "actively" push to allow individual Chinese tourists to visit Taiwan, Man Hongwei, secretary-general of the Beijing-based Association for Tourism Exchange Across the Taiwan Straits, said at a press briefing in Taipei this week.

Chinese tourists in Taiwan reached 707,400 in the first seven months and are expected to exceed one million this year, Man said.

Ma's Nationalist Party severed transportation ties with the mainland when its leaders fled to Taiwan in 1949 after being defeated by Mao Zedong's communists. China, which considers Taiwan part of its territory, has more than 1,000 missiles pointed at the island and has warned it may use force to stave off any moves toward formal independence.

The island spent a record amount in 2009 on a global campaign to boost its international profile as a tourist destination amid the economy's deepest recession, said Christine Lai, deputy director at the tourism bureau's international affairs division, declining to specify the figure. That included advertisements on CNN and British Broadcasting Corp. channels, targeting businesspeople and professionals.

--Editors: Mark McCord, Andreea Papuc

To contact the reporter on this story: Chinmei Sung in Taipei at csung4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chris Anstey in Tokyo at canstey@bloomberg.net

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