Why
The Covid-19 pandemic has spawned a whole generation of online tours that enable consumers to ‘visit’ destinations from the comfort and safety of their own homes. Many of these tours, however, feature pre-recorded walkthroughs with little audience engagement.
Seeing a gap in this space, Monster Day Tours has rolled out a series of Virtual Bingo Tours in Singapore, where tour guides stream live commentaries from both beloved and lesser-known places, and participants stand to win prizes by playing along with a Bingo card and trivia games.
What
The Virtual Bingo Tours are hosted on Zoom, with each ticket priced at S$10 (US$7). Participants can win a variety of mini-prizes, as well as a grand prize of S$1,000. The first tours, covering the one-north district, have been held twice a month since July and were sold out. The next tour will be held on September 5.
The following series will visit St John’s Island, with dates to be announced. More attractions, including behind-the-scenes visits, are being developed.
How
I joined the first Virtual Bingo Tour that explored the unique region of one-north. With my own Bingo card loaded on one half of my screen and the Zoom tour on the other half, I dove into the depths of Singapore’s “Silicon Valley”, led by Monster Day Tours’ co-founder, Byron Koh.
As Koh introduced the history of one-north and how it came to be the country’s hotbed for innovation, I kept my ears peeled for boxes on my Bingo cards that I could cross out. The cards were populated with a mix of key words – to be marked once they were mentioned – as well as numbers.
The numbers could be checked off during intervals, when a number wheel was spun or when co-founder and ‘moderator’ TY Suen dropped the group a trivia question. The first two respondents to send the right answer in the chat could each pick a number to be crossed out. At some junctures, we could even receive discounts from featured merchants.
By the second leg of the tour, Bingos were called across the chat. Every player who struck out a row of five boxes would be entitled to one spin on the mini-prize wheel, with prizes ranging from Grab and Starbucks vouchers, to even fresh fruit delivered to one’s doorstep.
Players who mark off three lines on their Bingo card will be entitled to one spin on the grand prize wheel. Unfortunately, none of the guests on our tour were quite so lucky.
Verdict
A tour in Singapore might ordinarily be a hot and humid affair in the sun, but from the comfort of my room, the two-hour Virtual Bingo Tour flew by too quickly. The Bingo game and trivia questions were excellent ways to keep participants immersed and engaged, while ensuring they kept up with the contents of the tour.
Both Suen and Koh, serving as our guides, were highly personable and enjoyable to have on the tour. Some segments were even reminiscent of a casual TV shopping experience as we grew curious about creations such as a recycling compactor and an environmentally friendly air-cooling unit.
The guides instructed participants to turn on their cameras, which was not explicitly stated before the session. Participants should ensure that their computer cameras have decent video quality, or inform Monster Day Tours beforehand if they are not comfortable with having their camera activated.
Rate: S$10
Contact:
Website: https://www.monsterdaytours.com/singapore-virtual-tours
The Indonesian government is still considering whether to give Bali the green light to reopen to international visitors in September.
The travel ban on foreigners that the central government has set since April to curb the spread of coronavirus is likely not to be revoked by then, although the Bali administration has made known that the island is ready to receive international tourists from September 11.
Reopening the country to international tourists is a “very positive” move, but the government is seeking the right timing to do that, said state-owned enterprises minister Erick Thohir, who is also chairman of the national economic and Covid-19 recovery committee, during a web press conference on August 15.
He said that although Indonesia really needs foreign tourists, the government doesn’t want new Covid-19 clusters to emerge again.
According to a recent meeting among related ministers, including foreign affairs minister Retno Marsudi and coordinating minister of maritime affairs and investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, safety remained the highest priority. Although the country was striving to get its economy back on track, the government did not want to go back to square one after its painstaking efforts to stem the Covid-19 spread, shared Erick.
“The reopening of destinations to foreign tourists is still under review. The vaccine may be available early next year,” Erick said.
Meanwhile, the country’s plan to establish travel bubbles hasn’t been burst. But the government is now exploring the possibility to include only Bali – or the island along with tourist destinations in other provinces – for the travel bubble scheme aimed at reviving its tourism industry.
The decision not to open the country as a whole is still under review, according to Hari Sungkari, deputy of infrastructure and destination development at the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy.
“It could be that the travel bubble will not involve a foreign country and the whole of Indonesia. It could be country A with Bali only, or country A with Bali and another region,” he said in a web press conference. “Or the bubble could be even smaller, that is, a point-to-point (travel bubble), in which (a destination) in a foreign country is (paired) with a destination in Indonesia.”
With talks for the project still underway, Hari expects that Indonesia will reach travel bubble agreements with partner countries only by year-end.
As travel bubbles will also require travellers to adhere to health and safety protocols, Indonesia Tourism Development Corporation will give them a fast track to enter its property, The Nusa Dua in Bali, said its director of business and development, Edwin Darmasetiawan.
Besides Bali, other tourist destinations that the government will propose for the travel bubble scheme were not disclosed by Hari. Ng Sebastian, owner of Incito Vacations, expressed hopes that the government would choose smaller islands, such as Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara, Belitung in Bangka Belitung Islands, and Bintan in Riau Islands.
The Covid-19 crisis has made the government’s target of attracting 18 million foreign tourists this year an impossible goal, said Hari. According to the government’s forecast, the number of foreign tourists in Indonesia will drop to around 2.8 to four million this year, from 16.1 million visitors in 2019.
Hari projects that the country would only realise its 18 million foreign tourist arrival target in 2024 or 2025, and that domestic tourism would recover to pre-pandemic levels only in 2023.