Last week, Singapore Tourism Board has reported positive trend in visitors’ arrival in 2017. According to the reported number, Singapore had hosted a record high of 17.4 million visitors last year. The city had welcomed the travelers mainly from China and had witness an increment of 6.2 percent with respect to the last year numbers.
For the second time, Singapore Tourism Board has recorded highest numbers of tourism receipts and visitor arrivals in two years. The increment of 3.9 percent, SGD 26.8 billion (US $20.3 billion), in the initial estimates of expected tourism revenue was recorded in 2017.
Chinese visitors has been pivotal in the revival of the Singapore tourism, while a large number of visitors arrived Singapore since 2015, which has been on decline after 2013. The official statistics showed a peak of tourists’ arrivals in 2013 to 15.6 million, which declined in the following years with 15.1 million arrivals in 2014 and 15.2 million in 2015.
The official statistics of STB has showed that Chinese nationals had aggregated to the biggest portion of tourists – 18.5 of total number of tourists in full year – to Singapore. Increment of 12.7 percent year-on-year was recorded in 2017, which aggregated the number to 3.23 million for Chinese tourists.
Singapore tourism market growth is shared by Indonesia and India. Indian national shared the second biggest portion of the market with an aggregation of 1.27 million visitor arrivals last year, which constituted to 15.9 percent growth rate in 2017.
China has maintained its position as the top player of tourism to Singapore for third consecutive year with highest record of tourism receipts. Last week, STB acknowledge the contribution of China to its tourism industry.
Singapore Tourism Board noted, the increment has been mainly due to the spending growth in top feeder markets of Singapore “including high-spending ones such as China, South Korea and the United States.”
First three quarters of 2017 revealed China, United States of America and United Kingdom as the top spenders during their stay at Singapore. The tourism receipts, excluding gaming, entertainment and sightseeing, showed that the said countries showed highest absolute yearly growth with 10, 22 and 24 percent positive growth for China, US and UK respectively. According to STB, these countries had a higher spending on shopping.
The STB has estimated revenue generated by tourism between SGD 27.1 billion and SGD 27.6 billion, with an estimated number of 17.6 million to 18.1 million visitor arrivals for 2018.
