Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that, attributable to the summer holiday, visitors on package tours increased by 14.0% month-to-month to 771,000, yet down by 3.3% year-on-year. Package tour visitors from Mainland China (611,000) went down by 7.5% year-on-year, while those from the Republic of Korea (49,000) and Taiwan (63,000) surged by 30.6% and 59.4% respectively. In the first seven months of 2018, visitors on package tours totalled 5,040,000, up by 10.7% year-on-year.
Outbound residents using services of travel agencies increased by 4.8% year-on-year to 135,000. Number of residents travelling on package tours decreased by 13.3% to 47,000, with those going to Mainland China dropping by 1.4% to 37,000 (78.3% of total). In the first seven months of 2018, outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 899,000, up by 13.3% year-on-year.
There were 116 hotels & guesthouses operating at the end of July 2018, an increase of 9 year-on-year. Number of guest rooms grew by 8.0% year-on-year to 39,000, of which 5-star hotel rooms went up by 11.1% to 24,000, accounting for 61.9% of the total.
Number of guests of hotels & guesthouses in July 2018 rose by 1.1% year-on-year to 1,225,000. Guests coming from Mainland China (841,000) increased by 6.2%, while those from the Republic of Korea (38,000), Hong Kong (152,000) and Taiwan (48,000) dropped by 21.8%, 8.0% and 3.9% respectively. The average length of stay of guests went up by 0.1 night year-on-year to 1.5 nights. The average occupancy rate of hotels & guesthouses stood at 89.9%, down slightly by 0.9 percentage points year-on-year; the rates of 5-star hotels (+1.8 percentage points) and 4-star hotels (-0.1 percentage points) were both 92.7%.
In the first seven months of 2018, guests of hotels & guesthouses totalled 8,095,000, up by 6.8% year-on-year. The average occupancy rate of hotels & guesthouses rose by 3.2 percentage points to 88.7% and the average length of stay of guests increased by 0.1 night year-on-year to 1.5 nights. Visitor-guests accounted for 73.4% of the total overnight visitors, down marginally by 0.2 percentage points year-on-year.