Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that visitor arrivals in package tours increased by 8.8% year-on-year to 887,282 in December 2012. Visitors from Mainland China (650,389) increased by 10.6%, with 255,780 coming from Guangdong Province; besides, those from Taiwan, China (62,856) and the Republic of Korea (50,640) increased by 25.4% and 66.6% respectively. On the contrary, visitors from Hong Kong (31,839) decreased by 25.4%. For the whole year of 2012, visitors in package tours reached 9,122,332 (32.5% of total visitor arrivals), up by 21.0% year-on-year. Outbound residents in package tours soared by 92.9% year-on-year to 48,229 in December 2012. The most popular tour itineraries were Mainland China (74.2% of total); Taiwan, China (6.0%); and the Republic of Korea (5.8%), with 23,404 travelling to Guangdong Province. In 2012, residents travelling in package tours totalled 430,065, up by 70.7% year-on-year. Meanwhile, outbound residents travelling under own arrangements using services of travel agencies increased by 23.7% year-on-year to 80,394 in December 2012. The main destinations were Mainland China (45.6% of total); Hong Kong (27.3%); and Taiwan, China (13.7%). In 2012, residents travelling under such arrangements increased by 31.2% year-on-year to 861,152. There were 100 hotels and guesthouses operating at the end of December 2012, providing 26,069 rooms, an increase of 3,713 (+16.6%) year-on-year, of which guest rooms of 5-star hotels accounted for 63.8%. In December 2012, the hotels and guesthouses received 898,857 guests, up by 9.6% year-on-year; the average length of stay decreased by 0.09 night to 1.4 nights. The average occupancy rate of hotels and guesthouses stood at 86.2%, down by 3.5 percentage points year-on-year; occupancy rate of the hotels was 86.8%, with 4-star hotels leading at 89.7%. For the whole year of 2012, hotel guests increased by 10.8% year-on-year to 9,541,397 and the average occupancy rate stood at 83.1%, down by 1.1 percentage points. In 2012, visitor-guests took up 65.4% of the total number of overnight visitors, higher than the 62.3% in 2011.
