Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitors on package tours continued to decrease in September 2019, recording a 35.7% decline year-on-year to 448,000. Apart from an increase in package tour visitors from Malaysia (4,300), all other countries/places registered decreases, with those from mainland China (323,000), the Republic of Korea (32,000), Hong Kong (6,600) and Taiwan (58,000) dropping by 39.8%, 37.6%, 29.9% and 3.0% respectively. In the first three quarters of 2019, number of package tour visitors totalled 6,797,000, and the growth contracted to 4.5% year-on-year.

Outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 136,000 in September, down by 2.3% year-on-year. Residents travelling under own arrangements decreased by 10.3% to 92,000, with those visiting mainland China (35,000), Hong Kong (23,000) and Taiwan (12,000) falling by 10.2%, 18.8% and 22.5% respectively. Meanwhile, residents travelling on package tours rose by 19.8% to 44,000 on account of a 27.1% growth in those visiting mainland China (36,000). In the first three quarters of 2019, outbound residents using services of travel agencies totalled 1,340,000, up by 2.2% year-on-year.

There were 121 hotels & guesthouses operating at the end of September 2019, an increase of 5 year-on-year. Number of available guest rooms edged down by 0.6% year-on-year to 39,000, with 4-star hotel rooms decreasing by 7.3% to 7,200 whereas 5-star hotel rooms remaining steady at 25,000.

A total of 1,118,000 guests checked into hotels & guesthouses in September 2019, up by 2.0% year-on-year. Guests coming from the Republic of Korea (42,000), Hong Kong (153,000) and Taiwan (44,000) rose by 5.5%, 30.9% and 7.7% respectively, while those from mainland China (754,000) inched down by 0.7%. The average occupancy rate of hotels & guesthouses dropped by 2.1 percentage points year-on-year to 84.6%; the rates of 4-star hotels (83.2%) and 5-star hotels (87.0%) fell by 3.0 percentage points and 1.5 percentage points respectively. The average length of stay of guests held steady year-on-year at 1.5 nights.

In the first three quarters of 2019, guests of hotels & guesthouses totalled 10,545,000, up by 1.7% year-on-year. The average occupancy rate of hotels & guesthouses rose marginally by 0.4 percentage points to 90.8%. The average length of stay of guests remained stable at 1.5 nights. Visitor-guests accounted for 70.7% of the total overnight visitors, down by 1.3 percentage points year-on-year.