Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitors on package tours increased by 15.8% month-on-month to 660,000 in July 2016, yet down by 22.6% year-on-year. Package tour visitors from Mainland China (524,000) and Taiwan (41,000) decreased by 26.9% and 25.6% respectively year-on-year, while those from the Republic of Korea (30,000) soared by 161.0%. In the first seven months of 2016, visitors on package tours totalled 4,090,000, down by 30.0% year-on-year. Outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 109,000 in July 2016, up by 13.8% month-on-month and down by 16.5% year-on-year. Residents travelling on package tours decreased by 22.7% year-on-year to 43,000, with those travelling to Mainland China (29,000) and Taiwan (3,400) dropping by 35.1% and 14.3% respectively. On the other hand, residents travelling to the Republic of Korea on package tours totalled 4,100, a rebound from the significant decline in 2015 due to the impact of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. In the first seven months of 2016, outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 708,000, down by 17.3% year-on-year. There were 104 hotels & guesthouses operating at the end of July 2016, down by 1 month-on-month and up by 2 year-on-year. Number of guest rooms totalled 32,000, up by 1,900 (+6.3%) year-on-year, of which 5-star hotel rooms (20,000) increased by 1.6% and 4-star hotels rooms (7,700) rose substantially by 28.4%. A total of 1,042,000 guests checked into hotels & guesthouses in July 2016, up by 12.3% year-on-year. Guests from Mainland China (647,000) increased by 9.6%, and those from Hong Kong (183,000) and Taiwan (44,000) surged by 22.2% and 24.1% respectively. The average length of stay of guests was 1.4 nights, down by 0.1 night year-on-year. The average occupancy rate of hotels & guesthouses rose by 4.0 percentage points year-on-year to 86.8% in July 2016, the highest single-month figure since November 2014; the occupancy rate of 4-star hotels went up by 8.8 percentage points to 90.6%. In the first seven months of 2016, guests of hotels & guesthouses totalled 6,484,000, up by 12.7% year-on-year. The average occupancy rate of hotels & guesthouses stood at 79.8%, up slightly by 0.5 percentage point; the average length of stay of guests was 1.4 nights, down by 0.1 night. Visitor-guests accounted for 71.0% of the total overnight visitors, up by 2.7 percentage points year-on-year.
