Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitors on package tours rose by 20.2% year-on-year to 908,000 in April 2019. Package tour visitors from Mainland China (724,000), the Republic of Korea (60,000) and Taiwan (58,000) increased by 22.1%, 21.9% and 6.3% respectively, and those from Hong Kong (17,000) surged by 47.6%. In the first four months of 2019, there were 3,293,000 package tour visitors, a growth of 14.3% year-on-year.
Outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 128,000 in April, up slightly by 0.4% year-on-year. Residents travelling under own arrangements increased by 1.2% to 83,000; those going to Mainland China (35,000) and Taiwan (14,000) rose by 5.8% and 8.3% respectively, whereas those visiting Hong Kong (14,000) decreased by 29.9%. Meanwhile, residents travelling on package tours dropped by 1.0% to 45,000, despite a rise of 23.6% in those visiting Mainland China (37,000). In the first four months of 2019, outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 531,000, up by 3.0% year-on-year.
There were 117 hotels & guesthouses operating at the end of April 2019, an increase of 2 year-on-year. Number of available guest rooms grew by 1.9% year-on-year to 39,000, with 5-star hotel rooms rising by 2.9% to 24,000 (63.4% of total).
A total of 1,143,000 guests checked into hotels & guesthouses in April 2019, down by 2.2% year-on-year. Guests coming from Mainland China (774,000) and Taiwan (34,000) dropped by 2.8% and 20.5% respectively, whereas those from the Republic of Korea (40,000) and Hong Kong (137,000) grew by 13.3% and 1.3%. The average occupancy rate of hotels & guesthouses went up by 0.3 percentage points year-on-year to 91.4%; the rates of 5-star hotels (92.3%) and 4-star hotels (92.1%) rose by 0.4 percentage points and 0.2 percentage points respectively, while that of 3-star hotels (92.5%) fell by 0.4 percentage points. The average length of stay of guests held steady year-on-year at 1.4 nights.
In the first four months of 2019, guests of hotels & guesthouses totalled 4,662,000, up by 2.8% year-on-year. The average occupancy rate of hotels & guesthouses rose by 1.5 percentage points to 91.8%. The average length of stay of guests remained stable at 1.5 nights. Visitor-guests accounted for 70.1% of the total overnight visitors, down by 2.8 percentage points year-on-year.