Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitors on package tours totalled 757,000 in April 2018, up by 12.9% year-on-year and 6.2% month-to-month. Package tour visitors from Mainland China (596,000) and the Republic of Korea (50,000) grew by 12.2% and 27.8% respectively year-on-year, while those from Taiwan (53,000) surged by 57.5%. In the first four months of 2018, visitors on package tours totalled 2,885,000, up by 20.1% year-on-year.
Outbound residents using services of travel agencies increased by 8.1% year-on-year to 120,000. Number of residents travelling on package tours in April decreased by 8.9% year-on-year to 41,000, with those going to Mainland China dropping by 22.4% to 27,000 (65.3% of total) since the Easter holiday fell in April 2017 when more residents joined outbound package tours. In the first four months of 2018, outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 501,000, up by 12.6% year-on-year.
There were 115 hotels & guesthouses operating at the end of April 2018, an increase of 8 year-on-year. Number of guest rooms grew by 6.0% year-on-year to 39,000, with 5-star hotel rooms rising by 7.9% to 24,000, accounting for 61.2% of the total.
Number of guests of hotels & guesthouses in April 2018 rose by 7.6% year-on-year to 1,165,000. Guests coming from Mainland China (792,000) and Taiwan (43,000) increased by 16.8% and 4.5% respectively, while those from the Republic of Korea (35,000) and Hong Kong (135,000) dropped by 3.6% and 19.5% respectively. The average length of stay of guests held steady year-on-year at 1.4 nights. The average occupancy rate of hotels & guesthouses stood at 88.9%, up by 2.8 percentage points year-on-year; the rates of 5-star and 4-star hotels were both 91.9%, up by 6.1 percentage points and 2.1 percentage points respectively.
In the first four months of 2018, guests of hotels & guesthouses totalled 4,518,000, up by 8.8% year-on-year. The average occupancy rate of hotels & guesthouses rose by 4.7 percentage points to 88.9%. The average length of stay of guests went up by 0.1 night year-on-year to 1.5 nights. Visitor-guests accounted for 72.6% of the total overnight visitors, down slightly by 0.3 percentage points year-on-year.