Singapore saw a four per cent year-on-year increase in international visitor arrivals in 1H2017, but declines from markets such as Hong Kong and Thailand, according to the Singapore Tourism Board’s latest performance report.
Over the first two quarters, China (1.55 million), Indonesia (1.47 million), India (660,000), Malaysia (562,000) and Australia (523,000) were the destination’s top five international visitor-generating markets, accounting for 56 per cent of total international visitor arrivals in January to June 2017.
While India (+15 per cent), China (+ five per cent), and Indonesia (+four per cent) registered the largest absolute growth, Hong Kong (-17 per cent), Thailand (-seven per cent) and Taiwan (-five per cent) posted the largest drops.
The three fastest shrinking markets all ranked in the city’s top 15 source markets. In 11th place is Thailand (262,000), while Hong Kong (222,000) was the 13th top feeder and Taiwan (195,000) 14th.
Arrivals from Japan, Singapore’s seventh top source market, also dipped one per cent to hit 362,000 arrivals.
Notably, the destination saw a 10 per cent increase in tourism receipts to S$12.7 billion (US$9.3 billion). Growths were observed across all major components including shopping (+20 per cent); accommodation (+eight per cent); food & beverage (+three per cent); sightseeing, entertainment & gaming (+two per cent); and other components (+12 per cent).
Meanwhile, gazetted hotel room revenue for January to June 2017 was estimated at S$1.6 billion, a 1.6 per cent decline over the same period last year. But with average occupancy rate up 1.2 percentage points to 85 per cent – offsetting a 1.2 per cent fall in average room rate to S$231 – RevPAR still saw an increase (+0.2 per cent) to S$197.
