Tourism | Group tours down despite National Day

Visitors on package tours totaled 677,000 in October 2016, according to information released yesterday by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC), down by 19 percent year-on-year and up by 11.8 percent month-to-month, despite the National Day holidays at the start of the month.

Package tour visitors from mainland China (542,000) and Taiwan (39,000) dropped by 22.7 percent and 2 percent year-on-year, respectively. Meanwhile, visitors from South Korea (32,000) recorded an increase of 37.8 percent.

Outbound residents using travel agencies totaled 106,000 in October, down by 12.4 percent year-on-
year but up 7.1 percent month-to-month.

The number of outbound residents on package tours decreased by 21.7 percent year-on-year to around 40,000, of which residents travelling to mainland China (29,000) and Taiwan (3,100) dropped by 24.2 percent and 3.4 percent, respectively. The number of visitors travelling to South Korea (3,100) rose by 16.8 percent.

The number of guests at hotels and guesthouses in October increased substantially by more than 20 percent year-on-year to over one million, of which those from mainland China (695,000) and Hong Kong (154,000) went up by 18.6 percent and 31.9 percent respectively.

The average length of stay of guests fell by 0.1 nights year-on-year to 1.4 nights, while the average occupancy rate stood at 83.5 percent in October, up by 2.5 percentage points year-on-
year.

For the first ten months of 2016, the total number of visitors on package tours reached 6,093,000, down by 27 percent year-on-year.

However, the number of guests of hotels and guesthouses during the same ten-month period increased by 13.5 percent year-on-
year to 9,652,000.