Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitors on package tours totalled 559,000 in February 2017, down by 1.5% year-on-year and up by 4.7% month-to-month. Package tour visitors from Mainland China (414,000) and Taiwan (36,000) dropped by 5.4% and 9.3% respectively year-on-year, while those from the Republic of Korea (49,000) surged by 54.4%. In the first two months of 2017, visitors on package tours totalled 1,092,000, down by 4.0% year-on-year.
Outbound residents using services of travel agencies increased by 9.3% year-on-year to 114,000. Residents travelling on package tours went up by 12.1% to 48,000, with those going to Mainland China (34,000) rising by 13.7% and those to the Republic of Korea (6,900) soaring by 76.9%. In the first two months of 2017, outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 227,000, up by 10.4% year-on-year.
Total number of hotels & guesthouses operating at the end of February 2017 increased to 108. Number of guest rooms totalled 36,000, up by 13.2% year-on-year, with 5-star hotel rooms rising by 7.0% to 22,000 (60.2% of total).
A total of 949,000 guests stayed in hotels & guesthouses in February 2017, up by 8.1% year-on-year. Guests from Mainland China (625,000), the Republic of Korea (36,000) and Taiwan (40,000) recorded increase, while those from Hong Kong (121,000) decreased by 7.7%. The average length of stay of guests held stable as in February 2016, at 1.4 nights. The average occupancy rate of hotels & guesthouses stood at 84.9% in February 2017, an increase of 5.7 percentage points year-on-year; 5-star hotels took the lead at 88.0%, up by 6.5 percentage points, while the rates of 3-star (84.5%) and 4-star hotels (80.0%) rose by 11.7 and 0.3 percentage points respectively year-on-year.
In the first two months of 2017, guests of hotels & guesthouses totalled 1,991,000, up by 11.9% year-on-year. The average occupancy rate of hotels & guesthouses went up by 5.0 percentage points to 83.2%, while the average length of stay of guests held stable at 1.4 nights. Visitor-guests accounted for 72.2% of the total overnight visitors, up slightly by 0.6 percentage points year-on-year.