Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitors on package tours totalled 806,000 in April 2015, down by 6.8% year-on-year. Package tour visitors from Mainland China (648,000) and Taiwan (45,000) dropped by 6.6% and 19.6% year-on-year, while those from the Republic of Korea (35,000) and Hong Kong (29,000) rose by 11.9% and 0.5% respectively. Visitors arriving on package tours decreased by 7.7% year-on-year to 657,000, with those from Mainland China (518,000) and Taiwan (38,000) dropping by 8.4% and 21.2% respectively. Meanwhile, visitors joining local tours totalled 150,000, a decrease of 2.6%. In the first four months of 2015, visitors on package tours reached 3,385,000, up by 6.5% year-on-year; those arriving on package tours grew by 6.1% to 2,751,000. Outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 113,000 in April 2015, a year-on-year decrease of 1.8%; those travelling on package tours dropped by 1.1% to 45,000, and the main destinations were Mainland China (77.0% of total), Taiwan (8.8%), the Republic of Korea (4.2%) and Hong Kong (3.5%). In the first four months of 2015, outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 497,000, up by 6.2% year-on-year. There were 99 hotels and guesthouses operating at the end of April 2015, providing 28,000 guest rooms, up by 1.7% year-on-year; 5-star hotels accounted for 64.8% of the total supply, with 18,000 rooms. A total of 827,000 guests checked into hotels and guesthouses in April 2015, down by 7.1% year-on-year. Guests from Mainland China (521,000) decreased by 12.0%, while those from Hong Kong (125,000) and Taiwan (29,000) increased by 10.9% and 8.6% respectively. The average length of stay of guests held stable as April 2014, at 1.4 nights. The average occupancy rate of hotels and guesthouses was 79.4%, a rebound from March (77.2%) yet still down by 5.9 percentage points year-on-year; the rate of 4-star hotels and 5-star hotels was 82.2% and 79.5% respectively. In the first four months of 2015, hotel guests totalled 3,184,000, down by 10.4% year-on-year; the average occupancy rate stood at 79.0%, a decrease of 7.3 percentage points. Visitor-guests accounted for 68.1% of the total overnight visitors, down by 1.5 percentage points year-on-year.
