STATISTICS – TOURISM | Hotel occupancy down 16 percent y-o-y

A total of 797,000 guests checked into hotels and guesthouses in March, down by 16.1 percent year-on-year. The average occupancy rate of hotels and guesthouses also dropped by 10.9 percentage points year-on-year to 77.3 percent.
According to information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC), tourists from mainland China (505,000), Hong Kong (100,000) and Taiwan (26,000) decreased by 18.6 pct, 13.1 pct and 15.9 pct respectively, while those from the Republic of Korea (18,000) increased by 5.9 pct. The average length of stay was 1.4 nights, similar to that of March 2014.
There were 99 hotels and guesthouses operating at the end of March 2015, providing 28,000 guest rooms, up by 1.8 pct year-on-year; 5-star hotels accounted for 64.8 pct of the total supply, with 18,000 rooms.
Visitors on package tours totaled 887,000 in March, up by 8.3 pct year-
on-year. The 730,000 tourists arriving on package tours accounted for 82.2 pct of the total, up by 7.1 pct year-on-year. Those joining local tours increased by 14.1pct to 158,000 (17.8 pct of total). Package tour visitors from mainland China increased by 14.5 pct year-on-year to 724,000, with 311,000 coming from Guangdong Province. Visitors from the Republic of Korea (35,000) and Japan (17,000) also increased by 1.4 pct and 6.3 pct respectively, whereas those from Taiwan (50,000) and Hong Kong (23,000) decreased. In the first quarter of 2015, visitors on package tours reached 2,710,000, up by 9.2 pct year-on-
year.