The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has set targets of attracting between
14.8 and 15.5 million overseas visitor arrivals and earning 23.5-24.5
billion SGD from tourism receipts this year.
According
to the STB data, last year, the city-state received 14.4 million
visitor arrivals who spent 23 billion SGD in shopping, sightseeing,
entertainment and hotel rooms.
In 2012, visitor arrivals rose 9 percent over 2011, while tourism receipts grew 3.6 percent.
Over
the past five years, tourist arrivals to Singapore have grown at a
compound annual rate of 9.2 percent and tourism receipts at 10.4
percent.
Singapore ’s next phase of growth will focus on
increasing visitor spending rather than just numbers. According to
analysts, one way will be to get tourists to stay longer, which can be a
challenge to high hotel room rates.
Average rates in
Singapore climbed to a record high of 261 SGD last year, making it one
of the priciest in the region. Hence, tourist executives believe that
Singapore should try to stay relevant to middle class tourists from
India and China by sharply increasing the number of high quality
three-star hotel rooms.
By 2015, hotel rooms will be 20 percent more than in 2012 to 53,000.
The STB said that in the first three quarters of 2012, arrivals from
China grew 23 percent to an all-time high of 1.5 million and tourism
receipts from China also posted a growth of 18 percent to 1.86
billion SGD.
The number of visitors from Japan was also up 17
percent to some 554,000 who spent 700 million SGD, an increase of 20
percent.
As the tourism industry continues to
grow by leaps and bounds, the STB hopes to raise tourism contributions
to the country’s GDP to 8 percent by 2015 from 4.3 percent in 2012 and
4.1 percent in 2011.
By 2015, the country expects to lure 17
million tourists to get tourism receipts of 30 billion SGP and to
generate 250,000 jobs in hospitality and related industries.-VNA