Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitors on package tours totalled 569,000 in February 2016, down by 34.0% year-on-year and 0.2% month-to-month. Package tour visitors from Mainland China (438,000) decreased by 36.7% year-on-year, and those from the Republic of Korea (34,000) and Taiwan (40,000) dropped by 18.8% and 24.2% respectively. In the first two months of 2016, visitors on package tours totalled 1,139,000, down by 33.2% year-on-year. Outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 105,000 in February 2016, down by 23.2% year-on-year. Residents travelling on package tours decreased by 23.1% year-on-year to 44,000; the main destination was Mainland China (75.3% of total), down by 22.6%, followed by the Republic of Korea (8.2%) and Hong Kong (5.7%). In the first two months of 2016, outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 207,000, down by 16.9% year-on-year. There were 106 hotels/guesthouses operating at the end of February 2016, an increase of 8 year-on-year. Number of guest rooms totalled 32,000, up by 4,000 (+13.9%) year-on-year, with rooms of 5-star hotels (20,000) and 4-star hotels (8,000) together accounting for 87.5% of the total. A total of 872,000 guests checked into hotels/guesthouses in February 2016, up by 15.9% year-on-year. Guests from Mainland China increased by 9.1% to 562,000, while those from the Republic of Korea (23,000), Hong Kong (130,000) and Taiwan (36,000) recorded double-digit growth. The average length of stay of guests held stable at 1.4 nights as in February 2015. The average occupancy rate of hotels/guesthouses was 78.6%, down by 1.8 percentage points year-on-year; 5-star hotels had the highest occupancy rate at 80.5%, down by 3.2 percentage points, while the rate for 4-star hotels rose by 5.1 percentage points to 79.7%. In the first two months of 2016, guests of hotels/guesthouses totalled 1,767,000, up by 13.8% year-on-year. The average occupancy rate of hotels/guesthouses stood at 77.5% and the average length of stay of guests was 1.4 nights, down by 2.5 percentage points and 0.1 night respectively. Visitor-guests accounted for 71.1% of the total overnight visitors, up substantially by 5.0 percentage points year-on-year.
