The city-State of Singapore recorded in 2013 over 15.5 million foreign visitors and Us$ 18.7 billion in revenues, reaching new highs in its tourism history. However, tourism spending growth was the slowest since 2009.
SINGAPORE – Singapore’s tourist spending reached a new high of S$ 23.5 (18.7 billion U.S. dollars) in 2013, up 1.6 % from a year earlier, according to preliminary estimates by Singapore Tourism Board released on Monday. The growth, however, was the slowest since 2009. Total arrivals however grew at a faster pace than spending, up by 7.2% over 2012 to reach a new record of 15.5 million foreign tourists, with 77% of all arrivals originated from Asia.
Among the city-state’s top 15 international visitor arrivals’ markets, Chinese mainland, China’s Taiwan and Hong Kong all registered double-digit annual growth rate in visitor arrivals, which was boosted by increase in air capacity, as well as higher twinning traffic with Malaysia, according to Xinhua.
The slower growth rate in spending was mainly due to a slower than expected turn-around of business travellers. Singapore business travel market continues to be affected by sluggish economic development in many important inbound markets such as Europe, North America but also India. According to the Singapore Tourism Board, business travellers spent 6% less money in the city-State during the first nine months of 2013. On the other hand, from January to September last year, leisure travellers spent 10 percent more than the same period a year earlier.
Chinese travellers increasingly are the engine of tourism growth for Singapore. During the same period, visitors from the Chinese mainland surpassed Indonesia as the biggest spenders in Singapore, with tourism receipts of S$ 2.38 billion (US$ 1.89 billion dollars), 5.77 % more than Indonesians. This excludes what they spent on sightseeing, entertainment and gaming. The rise in Chinese visitors’ spending was mainly due to increase in shopping expenditure, the tourism board said. There were totally 1.9 million visitors coming into Singapore from Chinese mainland from last January to September, still ranking as the second largest tourists resource following Indonesia.
Luc Citrinot a French national is a freelance journalist and consultant in tourism and air transport with over 20 years experience. Based in Paris and Bangkok, he works for various travel and air transport trade publications in Europe and Asia.
