Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitors on package tours increased by 16.4% year-on-year to 827,000 in May 2019. Package tour visitors from mainland China (639,000), the Republic of Korea (58,000) and Taiwan (59,000) rose by 17.5%, 26.8% and 6.1% respectively, whereas those from Hong Kong (16,000) surged by 53.5%. In the first five months of 2019, there were 4,122,000 package tour visitors, a growth of 14.7% year-on-year.
Outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 152,000 in May, up by 19.8% year-on-year. Residents travelling under own arrangements increased by 20.2% to 105,000; those going to mainland China (38,000) and Hong Kong (31,000) grew by 9.5% and 47.8% respectively. Meanwhile, residents travelling on package tours rose by 18.8% to 47,000, with 38,000 visiting mainland China, an upsurge of 30.6%. In the first five months of 2019, outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 688,000, up by 7.2% year-on-year.
There were 119 hotels & guesthouses operating at the end of May 2019, an increase of 4 year-on-year. Number of available guest rooms grew by 2.6% year-on-year to 39,000, with 5-star hotel rooms rising by 3.8% to 25,000 (63.6% of total).
A total of 1,158,000 guests checked into hotels & guesthouses in May 2019, down by 1.7% year-on-year. Guests coming from mainland China (803,000) and the Republic of Korea (45,000) grew by 0.7% and 11.4% respectively, whereas those from Hong Kong (110,000) and Taiwan (33,000) dropped by 10.6% and 16.2%. The average occupancy rate of hotels & guesthouses rose by 1.1 percentage points year-on-year to 90.1%; the rates of 3-star hotels (91.9%), 4-star hotels (91.2%) and 5-star hotels (90.7%) increased by 2.3 percentage points, 0.8 percentage points and 0.7 percentage points respectively. The average length of stay of guests shortened by 0.1 night year-on-year to 1.4 nights.
In the first five months of 2019, guests of hotels & guesthouses totalled 5,821,000, up by 1.9% year-on-year. The average occupancy rate of hotels & guesthouses rose by 1.4 percentage points to 91.4%. The average length of stay of guests held steady at 1.5 nights. Visitor-guests accounted for 70.0% of the total overnight visitors, down by 3.6 percentage points year-on-year.