Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitors on package tours totalled 908,000 in November, up by 16.5% month-to-month but down slightly by 0.9% year-on-year. Package tour visitors from Mainland China (721,000) dropped by 4.1% year-on-year, whereas those from the Republic of Korea (59,000) and Taiwan (63,000) surged by 24.3% and 40.5% respectively. In the first eleven months of 2018, visitors on package tours totalled 8,191,000, up by 6.1% year-on-year.
Outbound residents using services of travel agencies grew by 11.8% year-on-year to 139,000. Number of residents travelling on package tours totalled 46,000, with 35,000 (77.0% of total) visiting Mainland China. In the first eleven months of 2018, outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 1,432,000, up by 13.6% year-on-year.
There were 116 hotels & guesthouses operating at the end of November 2018, an increase of 6 year-on-year. Number of guest rooms grew by 5.8% year-on-year to 39,000, with 5-star hotel rooms rising by 9.7% to 25,000 (63.1% of total).
There were 1,202,000 guests checking into hotels & guesthouses, up by 6.1% year-on-year. Guests coming from Mainland China (828,000) and Hong Kong (114,000) increased by 7.9% and 1.9% respectively. Number of guests from the Republic of Korea (40,000) remained stable; however, guests coming from Taiwan (34,000) decreased by 6.5%. The average length of stay of guests held steady year-on-year at 1.4 nights. The average occupancy rate of hotels & guesthouses went up by 2.5 percentage points year-on-year to 93.9%, with the rates of 3-star and 5-star hotels reaching 95.3% and 94.9% respectively, both recorded an increase of 3.3 percentage points.
In the first eleven months of 2018, guests of hotels & guesthouses totalled 12,847,000, up by 7.5% year-on-year. The average occupancy rate of hotels & guesthouses rose by 4.1 percentage points to 90.7% and the average length of stay of guests stayed at 1.5 nights. Visitor-guests accounted for 72.5% of the total overnight visitors, an increase of 0.4 percentage points year-on-year.