Despite a fall in the number of Chinese tour groups, the Kaohsiung City Government remains confident about the local tourism industry, Kaohsiung Tourism Bureau Director Tseng Tzu-wen (曾姿雯) said on Sunday at the opening of a new luxury hotel in the city.
Some hotels in the city have shut down this year, but several new ones have been opened, including the NT$2 billion (US$66.2 million) Silks Club in Cianjhen District (前鎮) which formally opened on Sunday, Tseng said.
Thirteen hotels with a total of 550 rooms closed in the city between January and the end of last month, he said, but 19 with 1,350 rooms have opened during the same period, resulting in a net increase of 800 rooms in Kaohsiung so far this year.
The bureau has also received applications to open another two new hotels in Zuoying District (左營), reflecting the growing potential of the city’s tourism sector, Tseng said.
Although the number of Chinese tour groups has fallen, with Chinese visitor arrivals in the first nine months of the year down 31.2 percent from a year earlier, Tseng said visitors from Southeast Asia have helped pick up some of the slack.
However, Tourism Bureau statistics show that China was still the main source of overseas visitors at Kaohsiung hotels in the first half of the year, followed by those from Japan, and Hong Kong and Macau.
Domestic visitors accounted for 53.3 percent of the guests at the hotels, an indication of how important the domestic market remains.
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊), who also attended the opening ceremony, was also upbeat on the future of tourism in the city after it was rated as the fifth-best city in the world to visit next year by travel guide publisher Lonely Planet.
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