Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitors on package tours increased by 6.0% month-to-month to 728,000 in November 2016, with the year-on-year decline narrowing further to 6.5% as compared to 17.8% in October 2016. Package tour visitors from Mainland China (587,000) and the Republic of Korea (27,000) dropped by 7.5% and 5.5% respectively year-on-year, while those from Taiwan (38,000) increased by 1.0%. In the first eleven months of 2016, visitors on package tours totalled 6,831,000, down by 25.1% year-on-year. Outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 101,000 in November 2016, down by 11.1% year-on-year. Residents travelling on package tours decreased by 17.9% year-on-year to 38,000, of which residents travelling to Mainland China (26,000) dropped by 9,100 (-25.7%), while those travelling to the Republic of Korea (3,600) and Taiwan (2,500) increased by 62.3% and 14.4% respectively. In the first eleven months of 2016, outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 1,121,000, down by 15.9% year-on-year. There were 107 hotels & guesthouses operating at the end of November 2016, up by 3 year-on-year. Number of guest rooms increased by 14.0% to 36,000, with that of 3-star hotels having a significant increase of 116.7%. The number of guest rooms of 5-star (22,000) and 4-star hotels (7,700) together accounted for 81.2% of the total. Number of guests of hotels & guesthouses in November 2016 increased by 18.0% year-on-year to 1,103,000, of which guests from Mainland China (697,000), the Republic of Korea (31,000), Hong Kong (148,000) and Taiwan (40,000) went up by 19.6%, 61.9%, 7.0% and 12.9% respectively. The average length of stay of guests decreased by 0.1 night year-on-year to 1.4 nights. The average occupancy rate of hotels & guesthouses stood at 86.4% in November 2016, up by 1.9 percentage points year-on-year, with 4-star hotels leading at 92.8%. Meanwhile, the average occupancy rate of other hotel categories also exceeded 80.0%. In the first eleven months of 2016, guests of hotels & guesthouses totalled 10,756,000, up by 14.0% year-on-year. The average occupancy rate of hotels & guesthouses stood at 82.0%, up by 1.4 percentage points, while the average length of stay of guests was 1.4 nights, down by 0.1 night year-on-year. Visitor-guests accounted for 71.6% of the total overnight visitors, up by 3.4 percentage points year-on-year.
