Kaohsiung's largest jewelry store closed when Chinese tourists vanished overnight

ZETA Jie Da Jewelry (捷达珠宝) was Kaohsiung's largest jewelry store, occupying 2,500 ping (about 8,250 square meters) on Zhongzheng Road — reportedly the largest single jewelry store in Asia. It was a Taiwan-Hong Kong joint venture that built its entire business model around Chinese group tour shoppers, who were brought in by the busload to buy diamonds and other luxury jewelry.

The business was entirely dependent on cross-strait tourism. The store was designed for high-volume, commission-driven sales to tour groups — a model that worked as long as Chinese tourists kept coming. ZETA also expanded into the hotel business, opening three hotels in Kaohsiung and Hualien to capture more of the tour-group spend.

On January 31, 2020, Taiwan effectively shut down Chinese tour-group travel due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With Chinese tour groups reduced to zero overnight, ZETA's revenue disappeared. The store closed within days. Its Kaohsiung Aviation Hotel followed, shutting down on February 9, 2020. General manager Zhang Zhenzong told reporters that after January 31 there were simply no more Chinese tour groups, and the company was reduced to maintaining basic manpower with no clear path forward.