Singapore pushes for high-yield

ON THE back of a record year for Singapore, the tourism industry today was urged to focus on value creation, a move that would in turn drive receipts.

Speaking at the annual Tourism Industry Conference, Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry and Education, S Iswaran, said the tourism sector now needed to shift from “sheer quantity to yield and value capture as the norm”.

He pointed out that shopping malls had launched concierge services to target high net worth individuals; cross-selling was taking place between Suntec and Resorts World Sentosa to allow clients to conduct business events at the former and social functions at the latter; and hotels were on the cusp of implementing an industry-wide productivity plan. He added that these were examples of each of the three strategies of innovation, integration and productivity respectively.

This year, the Singapore Tourism Board is expecting to receive between 12 million and 13 million visitor arrivals and between S$22 billion (US$17.4 billion) and S$24 billion in tourism receipts. This would be an increase of at least three per cent in arrivals, but a minimum jump of 17 per cent in receipts.

Explaining the disparity, chief executive Aw Kah Peng said: “For us, it is about quality growth.” She added that the country’s key markets would continue to be “very diversified but Asian-centric”.

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