Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitors on package tours declined by 35.3% year-on-year to 509,000 in October 2019. Apart from an increase of 19.2% in package tour visitors from Malaysia (5,500), all other countries/places registered decreases, with those from mainland China (380,000), the Republic of Korea (33,000), Hong Kong (6,100) and Taiwan (60,000) dropping by 38.5%, 37.6%, 42.5% and 3.6% respectively. In the first ten months of 2019, number of package tour visitors totalled 7,292,000, which was similar to the corresponding figure in 2018.
Outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 149,000 in October, down slightly by 0.4% year-on-year. Residents travelling under own arrangements dropped by 13.9% to 94,000, with those visiting mainland China (37,000), Hong Kong (23,000) and Taiwan (12,000) falling by 12.3%, 26.2% and 26.4% respectively. Meanwhile, residents travelling on package tours surged by 36.0% to 55,000 on account of a 41.7% growth in those visiting mainland China (46,000). In the first ten months of 2019, outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 1,487,000, up by 1.8% year-on-year.
There were 121 hotels & guesthouses operating at the end of October 2019, an increase of 5 year-on-year. Number of available guest rooms edged down by 0.6% year-on-year to 38,000, of which 4-star hotel rooms decreased by 8.2% to 7,100 whereas 5-star hotel rooms inched up by 0.6% to 25,000.
A total of 1,177,000 guests checked into hotels & guesthouses in October 2019, up by 2.3% year-on-year. Guests coming from the Republic of Korea (41,000), Hong Kong (144,000) and Taiwan (39,000) grew by 16.6%, 25.6% and 11.7% respectively, while those from mainland China (815,000) stayed virtually unchanged. The average occupancy rate of guest rooms went down by 1.7 percentage points year-on-year to 88.2%; the rates of 5-star hotels (89.5%) and 4-star hotels (88.4%) fell by 1.5 percentage points and 2.4 percentage points respectively. The average length of stay of guests held steady year-on-year at 1.5 nights.
In the first ten months of 2019, guests of hotels & guesthouses totalled 11,721,000, up by 1.7% year-on-year. The average occupancy rate of guest rooms edged upby 0.2 percentage points to 90.6%. The average length of stay of guests remained stable at 1.5 nights. Visitor-guests accounted for 71.2% of the total overnight visitors, down by 0.6 percentage points year-on-year.