Package tour visitors increase in October

The National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holidays contributed to the increase in visitors travelling on package tours, which rose 16.3 percent year-on-year to 799,000 in October 2017, with a month-to-month increase of 6 percent. Package tour visitors from mainland China (647,000), the Republic of Korea (40,000) and Taiwan (43,000) went up by 17.0 percent, 29.2 percent and 11.8 percent respectively year-on-year.

In the first 10 months of 2017, visitors travelling via package tours totaled 6.8 million, up by 11.5 percent year-on-year, according to data provided by the Statistics and Census Service.

Outbound residents using the services of travel agencies increased by 18.7 percent year-on-year to 123,000.

Residents travelling on package tours grew by 23.2 percent to 48,000, with those going to mainland China (30,000) rising by 11.5 percent.

In the first 10 months of 2017, outbound residents using the services of travel agencies totaled 1.14 million, up by 11.7 percent year-on- year.

Tourists coming in from mainland China (738,000) rose by 5.5 percent year-on-year, and those from Korea (47,000) surged by 86.5 percent.

Meanwhile, visitors from Hong Kong (110,000) and Taiwan (39,000) dropped by 29.4 percent and 1.3 percent respectively.

The average length of stay of guests went up by 0.1 nights year-on- year to 1.5 nights.

The average occupancy rate of hotels and guesthouses stood at 88.2 percent, up by 4.1 percentage points year-on-year, with 5-star hotels (89.8 percent) and 4-star hotels (89.1 percent) recording relatively high rates for October, up by 4.9 percentage points and 1.2 percentage points respectively year-on-year.

In the first 10 months of 2017, the total number of guests at hotels and guesthouses exceeded 10.8 million,  up by 11.3 percent year-on-year. The average occupancy rate of hotels and guesthouses rose by 3.8 percentage points to 86.0 percent.