THE Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has introduced new initiatives to grow arrivals and increase the length of stay of business travellers and families on holiday with young children from Malaysia.
With this, STB hopes to combat declining arrivals from Malaysia, which remains the third largest source market for Singapore after Indonesia and China.
Arrivals from Malaysia had declined from 1.28 million visitors in 2013 to 1.23 million in 2014, then to 1.17 million in 2015. “Arrivals from Malaysia were flat in the first half of 2016, showing no growth or decline,” said Edward Koh, STB’s executive director of Southeast Asia.
He said the declining numbers from Singapore’s nearest neighbour was partly due to the challenging economic environment over the last two years as well as due to the increased usage of virtual meetings leading to the decline of face-to-face meetups.
But according to statistics, families with young children are a segment showing potential for growth. In 2015, Singapore welcomed more than 90,000 children below the age of 14, representing close to 8 per cent of total visitor arrivals into Singapore that year.
STB has thus launched Singapore Junior, a seven-episode web series which will kick off on August 19. Co-hosted by two young children below the age of 10, they embody the sense of wonder and excitement from a child’s perspective and provide travel advice and ideas to parents with young children.
To grow the business travel segment, which currently represents 33 per cent of tourist arrivals, STB has introduced a meetings and incentives rewards scheme for Malaysian corporates.
It offers complimentary activities such tours to Marina Barrage, National Gallery Singapore, Gardens by the Bay and the Singapore Zoo, among others. To qualify, groups have to number at least 20 people and stay for at least two nights in Singapore. The group must also complete their travel by March 31, 2017.
