Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitor arrivals in package tours increased by 10.2% year-on-year to 766,971 in April 2013. Package tour visitors mainly came from Mainland China (582,998), with 209,307 coming from Guangdong Province, followed by those from Taiwan, China (49,485); the Republic of Korea (35,301) and Hong Kong (32,678). In the first four months of 2013, visitors in package tours totalled 3,064,304, up by 11.4% year-on-year. Local residents travelling outbound using services of travel agencies increased by 29.4% year-on-year to 114,960 in April this year; those travelling in package tours totalled 42,629, with Mainland China; Taiwan, China; Hong Kong and the Republic of Korea being the main destinations. In the first four months of 2013, outbound residents increased by 27.6% year-on-year to 480,530, of which 176,947 travelled in package tours. There were 99 hotels and guesthouses operating at the end of April 2013, providing 28,111 rooms, up by 16.1% year-on-year; guest rooms of 5-star hotels accounted for 66.6% of the total. In April 2013, the hotels and guesthouses received 897,340 guests, up by 16.9% year-on-year. The average length of stay of guests decreased by 0.1 night year-on-year to 1.3 nights. The majority of guests came from Mainland China (59.2% of total) and Hong Kong (16.8%). The average occupancy rate of hotels and guesthouses decreased by 1.5 percentage points to 80.5%, with that of 4-star hotels at 84.6%. In the first four months of 2013, number of guests increased by 16.1% year-on-year to 3,421,831; the average occupancy rate stood at 79.9%, down by 3.0 percentage points. In the first four months of 2013, visitor-guests took up 70.6% of the total number of overnight visitors, higher than the 64.0% in the same period of 2012.
