Tourism | Package tour visitor numbers increase in March

Visitors on package tours rose by 12.4 percent year- on-year to 730,000 in March 2018, with a month-to-month increase of 19.3 percent, the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) informed in a statement yesterday.

The majority of package tour visitors continued to come from mainland China (558,000), the Republic of Korea (50,000) and Taiwan (55,000), rising by 10.4 percent, 28.1 percent and 51 percent respectively year-on- year.

In the first quarter of 2018, visitors on package tours totaled 2,144,000, up by 23.8 percent year-on-year.

Outbound residents using the services of travel agencies increased by 25.5 percent year-on-year to 134,000. Among them, residents travelling on package tours grew by 28.9 percent to 56,000, with those going to mainland China (32,000) rising by 4.6 percent.

In the first quarter of 2018, outbound residents using the services of travel agencies totaled 384,000, up by 14.9 percent year-on- year.

Meanwhile, the number of guests in hotels and guesthouses in March rose by 8.2 percent year-on- year to 1,143,000.

Guests coming from mainland China (768,000), the Republic of Korea (41,000), Hong Kong (131,000) and Taiwan (39,000) increased by 9.5 percent, 11.2 percent, 1.2 percent and 4.1 percent respectively year-on-year.

The average length of stay of guests held steady, year- on-year, at 1.4 nights.

In the first quarter of 2018, guests of hotels and guesthouses totaled 3,352,000, up by 9.2 percent year-on-year. The average occupancy rate of hotels and guesthouses rose by 5.3 percentage points to 88.8 percent.