Package tours and hotel occupancy rate for November 2015

Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitors on package tours totalled 769,000 in November 2015, down by 26.6% year-on-year and dropped by 6.9% month-to-month. Package tour visitors from Mainland China (622,000) decreased by 28.0% year-on-year, and those from the Republic of Korea (29,000), Hong Kong (18,000) and Taiwan (37,000) dropped by 19.2%, 27.5% and 39.7% respectively; meanwhile, visitors from Japan (17,000) rose by 27.1%. Visitors arriving on package tours totalled 727,000, down by 17.5% year-on-year, while visitors joining local tours tumbled by 74.8% to 42,000. In the first eleven months of 2015, visitors on package tours totalled 9,054,000, down by 10.2% year-on-year; those arriving on package tours (7,842,000) decreased by 5.8%. Outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 119,000 in November 2015, down by 9.6% year-on-year; those travelling on package tours decreased by 1.3% to 49,000, and the main destinations were Mainland China (72.9% of total), Korea (4.5%) and Taiwan (8.0%). In the first eleven months of 2015, outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 1,378,000, down by 1.5% year-on-year. There were 104 hotels and guesthouses operating at the end of November 2015, providing 32,000 guest rooms, up by 13.4% year-on-year. Number of guest rooms in 5-star hotels totalled 20,000, accounting for 63.1% of the total supply. Number of guests checking into hotels and guesthouses totalled 932,000 in November 2015, up by 3.3% year-on-year. Guests from Mainland China (581,000) decreased by 1.6%, while those from Hong Kong (132,000) increased by 33.8% year-on-year. The average length of stay of guests rose by 0.1 night year-on-year to 1.5 nights. The average occupancy rate of hotels and guesthouses was 84.6%, down by 5.7 percentage points year-on-year, with 4-star hotels leading at 86.2%, down by 5.8 percentage points. In the first eleven months of 2015, guests of hotels and guesthouses totalled 9,432,000 and the average occupancy rate stood at 80.2%, down by 4.0% and 6.4 percentage points respectively year-on-year. Visitor-guests accounted for 68.2% of the total overnight visitors, down by 0.4 percentage points year-on-year.