During the 3-day Mid-Autumn holiday, accommodations in Kenting are subpar; the highly popular Kenting South Bay Beach sees far fewer tourists playing in the water compared to regular holidays.
During the 3-day Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, a surge of overseas travel occurred after the downgrade of the COVID-19 epidemic level, and with the National Day holiday only one week apart, the popular domestic travel destination of Kenting in Pingtung saw an average hotel occupancy rate of 50% over the three days. Xiaoliuqiu saw ten thousand people visiting the island yesterday, but hotel occupancy was only 70% and saw many single-day round trips; today it fell again to 60%.
Fortunately, the hotel bookings for the two places nearly full two days before the National Day holiday. The Pingtung County Government’s Tourism Bureau said that there are many reasons for the decline in hotel occupancy during this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, and various theme activities will be held on the Hengchun Peninsula in the second half of the year to attract popularity.
Fortunately, hotel bookings have almost recovered to near full occupancy two days before the National Day holiday next week, which is the normal occupancy level for major holidays in the past, but the non-holiday periods in the second half of the year are still not good.
The crowds during this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival holiday are even less than during the summer vacation!’ said a water jet ski instructor surnamed Pan in Kenting’s South Bay. Apart from a few days when a typhoon passed through, there was almost no break during the summer vacation. Yesterday, the first day of the holiday, the number of people playing in the water at the South Bay (Nanwan) recreational beach was less than half that during the summer vacation, and it is expected to be even fewer today. All we can do is look forward to the National Day holiday.
Lin Shumin 林淑敏, the chairman of the Pingtung County B&B Association, said that during the epidemic, it was popular to book entire B&Bs.
Families could vacation together and have Mid-Autumn Festival barbecues booked very early. The business is not bad because the number of B&Bs has been continuously growing in recent years. In a limited market, everyone is relying on their own abilities to attract customers.
Even on the first night away from home, where traffic control was supposed to be implemented at 7 PM on Kenting Street to prohibit the entry of cars, there weren’t many people strolling on the street, and the traffic flow was also not heavy. The control was canceled, and the occupancy rate was as low as 30%; some guests also felt it.
As we see in the news footage above, no traffic control was implemented in Kenting Nightmarket