Tourism | Tour groups above 9m benchmark in 2018

Visitors on package tours totalled 9,096,000 in 2018, up by 5.5 percent year-on-year, with those from mainland China (7,103,000), South Korea (616,000) and Taiwan (696,000) recording increases of 2.6 percent, 28.3 percent and 53.8 percent respectively.

According to information released yesterday by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC), in 2018, guests at hotels and guesthouses reached 14,107,000, up by 7.2 percent year-on-
year. Guests coming from mainland China rose by 12.5 percent to 9,717,000, whereas those from South Korea (484,000), Hong Kong (1,515,000) and Taiwan (477,000) dropped by 3.4 percent, 5.9 percent and 3.2 percent respectively. The average occupancy rate of hotels and guesthouses went up by 3.9 percentage points year-on-year to 91 percent, with 5-star hotels leading at 92.4 percent, an increase of 4.6 percentage points. The average length of stay held steady year-on-year at 1.5 days.

In 2018, outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 1,579,000, up by 13.5 percent year-on-year. The number of residents travelling on package tours decreased by 6.1 percent to 527,000, with those visiting mainland China rising by 2.4 percent to 385,000.

In December, group visitors reached 917,000, up by 2.3 percent month-to-month and 1.6 percent year-on-year.