Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitors on package tours decreased by 4.5% month-to-month to 670,000 in June 2017, yet up by 18.1% year-on-year. Package tour visitors from Mainland China (510,000), the Republic of Korea (40,000) and Taiwan (35,000) increased by 15.8%, 30.7% and 9.5% respectively year-on-year, with those from India (24,000) surged by 167.1%. In the first half year of 2017, visitors on package tours totalled 3,775,000, up by 10.3% year-on-year.
Outbound residents using services of travel agencies rose by 12.4% year-on-year to 108,000. Residents travelling on package tours (45,000) went up by 16.8%, with those leaving for Mainland China increasing by 12.0% to 29,000. In the first half year of 2017, outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 665,000, up by 10.9% year-on-year.
There were 107 hotels & guesthouses operating at the end of June 2017. Number of guest rooms increased by 13.9% year-on-year to 37,000, with 33 five-star hotels offering 22,000 rooms (60.4% of the total), up by 7.3%.
Number of guests of hotels & guesthouses in June 2017 increased by 15.9% year-on-year to 1,091,000. Guests coming from Mainland China (688,000), the Republic of Korea (41,000) and Hong Kong (150,000) grew by 17.3%, 102.1% and 2.7% respectively year-on-year, whereas those from Taiwan (42,000) recorded a decrease of 5.4%. The average length of stay of guests held stable at 1.4 nights. The average occupancy rate of hotels & guesthouses went up by 2.4 percentage points year-on-year to 85.1%, with that of four-star hotels increasing by 2.4 percentage points to 88.1%. Moreover, the occupancy rates of five-star (85.4%) and three-star hotels (84.7%) also rose by 2.5 percentage points and 0.9 percentage points respectively.
In the first half year of 2017, guests of hotels & guesthouses totalled 6,345,000, up by 15.8% year-on-year. The average occupancy rate of hotels & guesthouses stood at 84.2%, up by 4.9 percentage points. The average length of stay of guests held stable at 1.4 nights when compared with the same period of last year. Visitor-guests accounted for 73.8% of the total overnight visitors, up by 1.6 percentage points year-on-year.