Tourism | Group tours grow 14 percent in 2017

Visitors on package tours rose by 27.8 percent year- on-year to 912,000 in December 2017, but edged down by 0.4 percent month-to-month. According to data released by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC), package tour visitors from mainland China (746,000), the Republic of Korea (45,000) and Taiwan (52,000) surged by 32.1 percent, 23.8 percent and 34.8 percent respectively year-on-year. For the whole year of 2017, visitors on package tours totaled 8,633,000, up by 14.3 percent year- on-year.

Outbound residents using the services of travel agencies increased by 7.9 percent year-on-year to 131,000 in December 2017. Among them, residents travelling on package tours grew by 7.5 percent to 56,000, with those going to mainland China (38,000) rising by 12.3 percent. In 2017, outbound residents using the services of travel agencies totaled 1,391,000, up by 11.2 percent year-on-year.

DSEC listed 111 hotels & guesthouses operating at the end of 2017, an increase of 4 year- on-year. The number of guest rooms grew by 2.3 percent year-on- year to 37,000, with those of 5-star hotels (22,000) accounting for 60 percent of the total.

The number of guests at hotels and guesthouses in December rose by 2.5 percent year-on-year to 1,204,000. Guests coming from mainland China (798,000) and South Korea (42,000) increased by 10.7 percent and 23.8 percent respectively year-on-year, while those from Hong Kong (140,000) and Taiwan (40,000) dropped by 23 percent and 12.6 percent respectively.