Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitor arrivals in package tours decreased by 2.0% year-on-year to 739,091 in March 2013. Package tour visitors mainly came from Mainland China (533,170), with 199,991 coming from Guangdong Province, followed by those from Taiwan, China (45,703); Hong Kong (41,859) and the Republic of Korea (40,738). In the first quarter of 2013, visitors in package tours totalled 2,297,333, up by 11.8% year-on-year. As the long Easter holiday fell in March this year, local residents travelling outbound using services of travel agencies increased by 24.0% year-on-year to 117,828; those travelling in package tours totalled 43,454, with Mainland China, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan, China being the main destinations. In the first quarter of 2013, outbound residents increased by 27.0% year-on-year to 365,530, of which 134,295 travelled in package tours. There were 100 hotels and guesthouses operating at the end of March 2013, providing 28,125 rooms, up by 26.3% year-on-year; guest rooms of 5-star hotels accounted for 66.4% of the total. In March 2013, the hotels and guesthouses received 915,766 guests, up by 20.4% year-on-year. The average length of stay of guests held stable from a year earlier at 1.4 nights. The majority of guests came from Mainland China (57.4% of total) and Hong Kong (18.2%). Due to an increase of 5,853 guest rooms year-on-year, the average occupancy rate of hotels and guesthouses decreased by 6.3 percentage points to 78.7%, with that of 4-star hotels at 83.4%. In the first quarter of 2013, number of guests increased by 15.7% year-on-year to 2,523,435; the average occupancy rate stood at 79.6%, down by 3.6 percentage points. In the first quarter of 2013, visitor-guests took up 69.7% of the total number of overnight visitors, higher than the 64.3% in the same period of 2012.
