NewTaiwan resort's marketing blitz nets Hong Kong tourists

The five-star Chateau Beach Resort at the southern tip of Taiwan - one of the island's priciest hotels with room rates averaging NT$5,000 (HK$1,300) a night - upgrades its guest rooms every year, with the next round set to cost NT$80 million.

The 15-year-old resort, which has its own beach, is also adding to its roster of water-related activities. And it belongs to a local hotel association in Kenting that goes on marketing offensives every year.

The hotel happens to be part of the original reason Hong Kong tourists started showing up en masse almost six years ago. Scenes of its guest rooms, which open onto a line of parasols on a tropical beach, featured in the blockbuster Taiwanese film Cape No7, which garnered fans across the strait and contributed heavily to Hong Kong's interest in Kenting.

The broader Kenting National Park resort area doesn't count how many Hong Kong tourists come through, but Taiwan's immigration agency says 55,392 arrived at nearby Kaohsiung International Airport last year, up from 44,108 in 2007, the year before the film came out. Arrivals to Taiwan's major international airport, which serves the capital Taipei, fell 39.7 per cent over the same period to 243,973 last year.

The 293-room hotel now sees 7,500 guests from Hong Kong and Macau a year, half of its visitors from outside Taiwan. They contributed NT$35 million, or 5 per cent of its annual income, general manager Tsai Te-hsiang said.

Kenting itself, a relatively inexpensive peninsula of sandy beaches, coral-festooned water and rocky coves that stays warm year-round, was keen to lure people from Hong Kong, he said.