Taiwan hotels struggle with spike in demand amid manpower shortage

TAICHUNG: For the first time in three years, Taiwan is ushering in the Chinese New Year with little to no COVID-19 restrictions.

From sitting silent for the most part during the pandemic, hotels now face the opposite problem – keeping up with demand.

Across the island, hotels have seen spikes in bookings during the festive season. Among them is Lihpao Resort in Taichung city, which is almost fully booked.

The hotel is situated a stone’s throw away from one of the largest amusement parks on the island and Taiwan’s largest race track.

The room occupancy has returned close to 90 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, said spokesperson Lillian Chen

“Since borders have only been recently reopened, we are just starting to receive more foreign visitors. So for the coming Chinese New Year holidays, 95 per cent of our guests are still local visitors,” she said.

Firms in the tourism industry started seeing a boost in sales as soon as Taiwan welcomed the return of tourists in October last year, after it eased some of the world’s most stringent COVID-19 border curbs.

Travel agencies started to see an uptick in bookings when Taiwan announced its reopening two weeks prior to doing so.

MANPOWER SHORTAGE

But as much as the Lihpao Resort would like to make up for their losses over the past three years, they are limited by a shortage of manpower, a common problem faced by many such establishments.

According to the Taiwan Tourism Bureau, up to 60 per cent of hotels across the island are struggling to find workers.

Honorary chairman of Taiwan Tourist Hotel Association, Mr Lai Cheng-I, said that on average, a hotel is short of labour by 30 per cent. Housekeeping departments are among the worst hit, lacking 70 per cent of labour.

“It’s very hard to recruit staff now, that's why there are reports of some Taipei hotel managers who have to make the room beds themselves,” Mr Lai said.

Many workers were laid off at the height of the pandemic, when the hospitality industry across the world was impacted.

With most of these former employees having landed new jobs, many are reluctant to return to the hospitality industry.

The low pay and demanding work in the sector do not help.

To cope with the crunch, hotels are moving workers from other departments to help out temporarily.

MORE TRAVELLERS EXPECTED

Industry players said the problem could worsen if Taiwan reopens its border to mainland tourists.

This, especially since Chinese tourists used to account for the biggest source of visitors to Taiwan before the pandemic struck.

Some hoteliers believe the best solution is to look beyond the island and import more foreign workers.

“We hope the government can inject 10,000 foreign workers into the hotel industry, whether it’s for housekeeping or frontline staff,” Mr Lai said.

The industry also expects more travellers outside of China to visit the island in the coming year.

It is estimated that hotel revenues have reached 80 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, and a full return to those levels could be reached by early next year.