San Francisco had a “doom loop” coming out of the pandemic but is recovering with AI growth, says Formosa International Hotels Chairman Steven Pan. The Taipei-headquartered company is eyeing an acquisition in the city. (Photo By Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
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Businessman Steven Pan and his family over the years have helped to turn Formosa International Hotels into one of Taiwan’s largest hospitality businesses, with more than 2,000 rooms across three different brands. Now, it is working to take aim at the U.S. market through an acquisition.
Formosa International is looking into the purchase of a luxury hotel in the San Francisco area, as a downturn during the post-pandemic era gradually gives way to a rebound, Chairman Steven Pan said in an interview on Wednesday at the Regent Taipei, the company’s flagship hotel.
“We are pursuing new acquisitions in North America,” Pan said. “Hotels and commercial real estate in certain areas have underperformed, relatively speaking,” he said. “We are looking at luxury properties in major cities.”
At the top of the list is San Francisco, where Pan hopes to make a purchase this year. “San Francisco had this ‘doom loop’ coming out of the pandemic” but is recovering with AI growth, he said. “Hopefully tourism in the city will recover as well.”
Pan, who has longstanding bonds to San Francisco, sees historic links between its Chinese-American community and Taiwan as important. “Silicon Valley and Taipei always have had a direct — if long-distance — connection,” Pan said. Today, they are being boosted by Taiwan’s role in the global technology supply chain and its ties to Silicon Valley leaders such as Nvidia, he said.
Formosa International Hotels Chairman Steven Pan.
Russell Flannery
Formosa International’s interest in overseas growth comes as it has been outperforming at home. Revenue at the company also known as the Silks Hotel Group grew by about 8% in the first half from a year earlier as overall Taiwan inbound tourists have increased only by a slower 1% through mid-July this year. Locals traveling abroad have increased their spending overseas, and domestic resorts and hotels outside of Taipei aren’t faring as well as those in Taiwan’s biggest city, he said.
Business has climbed in part because Regent Taipei and its adjoining luxury goods shopping complex have benefited from spending associated the city’s role as a thriving global technology hub; revenue from the Regent Galleria has shot up by 20% year-on-year so far in 2026, Pan said. Big gains at the Taiwan Stock Exchange, led by local chipmakers such as TSMC, have increased wealth and purchasing power, and are helping to fuel a widely projected 10% increase in GDP this year. “The scale of the wealth creation is very similar to Silicon Valley,” Pan said. “You can look at northern Taiwan — it’s like Silicon Valley.”
In addition to being based in one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, Pan attributed Formosa International’s growth in part to management decisions made during the Covid pandemic, a period during which the company didn’t lay off any of its 3,000-member staff even after borders closed and the business lost 80% of its revenue — a decision he talks about in his new book, “Crisis and Renewal.”
The move was inspired by one of Pan’s last talks with his father, a self-made industrialist who gave away most of his wealth and who taught his son that creating jobs was itself a form of philanthropy because it helped social mobility. In 2020, at the start of the pandemic, “We had money in the bank,” Pan said. “The impact I could make was through the people we employ and the lives we could help change.”
The company used the crisis to reinvent customers’ experience, turning the Regent Taipei into a destination with about 70 cruise-themed programs to give local guests the feeling of traveling without leaving Taiwan, he said. Japanese employees created a Tokyo-themed program, and the hotel partnered with concert singers who had lost their performance income during the pandemic. Even the hotel elevators became part of the experience: the sound of birds singing is still broadcast during the day, followed by crickets at dusk.”
“What looked like an illogical business decision in 2020 turned out to be one of the best business decisions of my life,” Pan said via email. “That is the message of the book – renewal requires a long-term business mindset, not just short-term optimization.”
Business renewal requires a long-term mindset, not just short-term optimization, Formosa International Hotels Chairman Steven Pan argues in his new book.
Steven Pan
Taking a long-term view of the local tourist industry, Pan believes Taiwan has tremendous tourist assets – colorful night markets, hot springs, mountain hiking and biking, rich culture, long beaches and tasty local cuisine, particularly seafood – that need to be marketed better. “Hong Kong has so many great trails” that attract visitors, he noted. Taiwan has more yet they known mainly to only locals, Pan said.
Pan suggests Taiwan’s government look at Japan as a model to help boost inbound tourism and reposition tourism as an export industry. “Very few people think of tourism as an export industry. But when your people travel overseas and spend money outside, you’re effectively importing tourism,” he said. “Exporting tourism means people coming into your country to spend money.”
Taiwan today is in a position similar to Japan 10 years ago before it turned things around, Pan said. He proposes that Taiwan’s government redefine the tourism industry as a service export, and support a newly formed research institute with a dedicated international marketing budget.
Taiwan has invested heavily in domestic sites and tourism assets, but “the world doesn’t know about them,” Pan said. The next logical step, he said, is to market Taiwan internationally in a much more focused, market-driven way – to tell the Taiwan story.”
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