Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitors on package tours totalled 887,000 in March 2015, up by 8.3% year-on-year. Visitors arriving on package tours accounted for 82.2% of the total, at 730,000, up by 7.1% year-on-year; those joining local tours increased by 14.1% to 158,000 (17.8% of total). Package tour visitors from Mainland China increased by 14.5% year-on-year to 724,000, with 311,000 coming from Guangdong Province. Visitors from the Republic of Korea (35,000) and Japan (17,000) increased by 1.4% and 6.3% respectively year-on-year, whereas those from Taiwan (50,000) and Hong Kong (23,000) decreased by 18.5% and 15.7%. In the first quarter of 2015, visitors on package tours reached 2,710,000, up by 9.2% year-on-year; those arriving on package tours grew by 11.4% to 2,097,000. Outbound residents using services of travel agencies were 136,000 in March 2015, a year-on-year increase of 16.9%; those travelling on package tours surged by 42.9% to 65,000, and the main destinations were Mainland China (84.5% of total), Taiwan (4.3%) and Hong Kong (3.1%). In the first quarter of 2015, outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 381,000, up by 7.6% year-on-year. There were 99 hotels and guesthouses operating at the end of March 2015, providing 28,000 guest rooms, up by 1.8% year-on-year; 5-star hotels accounted for 64.8% of the total supply, with 18,000 rooms. A total of 797,000 guests checked into hotels and guesthouses in March 2015, down by 16.1% year-on-year. Guests from Mainland China (505,000), Hong Kong (100,000) and Taiwan (26,000) decreased by 18.6%, 13.1% and 15.9% respectively, while those from the Republic of Korea (18,000) increased by 5.9%. The average length of stay of guests was 1.4 nights, up by 0.1 night year-on-year. The average occupancy rate of hotels and guesthouses dropped notably by 10.9 percentage points year-on-year to 77.3%; the rate of 2-star hotels (58.6%) tumbled by 20.1 percentage points and that of 5-star hotels (79.0%) decreased by 9.2 percentage points. In the first quarter of 2015, hotel guests totalled 2,356,000, down by 11.5% year-on-year; the average occupancy rate stood at 78.9%, a decrease of 7.8 percentage points. Visitor-guests accounted for 68.4% of the total overnight visitors, a drop of 1.3 percentage points year-on-year.
