Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitors on package tours totalled 823,000 in May 2015, down by 2.2% year-on-year. Package tour visitors from Mainland China (653,000), Taiwan (48,000) and Hong Kong (23,000) dropped by 2.0%, 17.0% and 12.1% respectively year-on-year, while those from the Republic of Korea (39,000) surged by 46.2%. Visitors arriving on package tours decreased by 1.1% year-on-year to 688,000. Meanwhile, visitors joining local tours totalled 135,000, a decrease of 7.7%. In the first five months of 2015, visitors on package tours totalled 4,243,000, up by 5.5% year-on-year; those arriving on package tours (3,463,000) increased by 5.3%. Outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 124,000 in May 2015, a year-on-year increase of 7.8%; those travelling on package tours increased by 10.3% to 51,000, and the main destinations were Mainland China (77.3% of total), the Republic of Korea (6.9%), Taiwan (4.1%) and Hong Kong (3.7%). In the first five months of 2015, outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 615,000, up by 5.4% year-on-year. There were 102 hotels and guesthouses operating at the end of May 2015, providing 30,000 guest rooms, up by 7.2% year-on-year. Attributable to the opening of 3 new hotels, number of guest rooms in 5-star hotels increased by 8.4% to 20,000, accounting for 66.6% of the total supply. A total of 863,000 guests checked into hotels and guesthouses in May 2015, down by 2.7% year-on-year. Guests from Mainland China (547,000) and Taiwan (27,000) decreased by 4.2% and 2.3% respectively, while those from Hong Kong (112,000) increased by 6.0%. The average length of stay of guests held stable as May 2014, at 1.4 nights. The average occupancy rate of hotels and guesthouses dropped by 6.6 percentage points year-on-year to 78.9%; the rate of 5-star hotels and 4-star hotels was 80.1% and 78.9% respectively, down by 6.0% and 9.1% year-on-year. In the first five months of 2015, hotel guests totalled 4,047,000, down by 8.8% year-on-year; the average occupancy rate stood at 79.0%, a decrease of 7.2 percentage points. Visitor-guests accounted for 68.5% of the total overnight visitors, down by 1.4 percentage points year-on-year.
