In hive you cannot Load data into the tables from xls directly, as you do for a txt or csv files.

You have two options:

1. Write an application (eg, Java) to read the xls files and convert them into text or csv files that can be loaded directly into a hive.

OR

2. You can create your own serde (Serializer or Deserializer) that you provide to parse your xls data to be loaded into a table.

Both have their pros and cons, but If you intend to use an application interacting with HIVE for loading, querying, transforming etc. You can go with option 1. But, if you intend to do via scripts/batch etc you can go with option 2.