Singapore Tourism to work closely with airlines and cruise liners in India
Feb 18, 2017: From January-September 2016, there was a growth in tourism receipts across Singapore’s top ten source markets. For the second consecutive year, China (+41 percent) ranked top in tourism receipts, followed by Indonesia (+14 percent) and India (+37 percent). Tourism receipts from China increased mainly due to a volume-driven growth while Indonesia and India saw tourism receipts growing on the back of visitors spending more on shopping and accommodation.
For 2016, the top growth markets visitor arrivals in terms of absolute growth were China (+36 percent), Indonesia (+6 percent), and India (+8 percent). The growth was due to more visitor arrivals from Tier I and Tier II cities in China, India and Indonesia, where STB had intensified its marketing efforts.
Both visitor arrivals and tourism receipts exceeded forecasts to hit historical highs in 2016. While visitor arrivals grew by 7.7 percent to 16.4 million, tourism receipts rose even higher by 13.9 percent to $24.8 billion.
Chief Executive of Singapore Tourism Board, Lionel Yeo, said, “We are heartened by the strong tourism sector performance in 2016. Despite challenges such as weaker economic performance in some of Singapore’s top source markets and a Zika virus outbreak, Singapore has managed to attract more quality visitors to contribute to economic growth.”
India also overtook Australia to become Singapore’s 4th largest source market for visitor arrivals. GB Srithar, Regional Director South Asia, Middle East & Africa, Singapore Tourism Board, said, “India is an important market for Singapore. In 2015, Singapore crossed one million visitor arrival from India and till November 2016, these figures had crossed one million for the second consecutive time.”
Speaking about strategy for the Indian market, Srithar said, “We value our relationship with trade partners and will work closely in partnership with travel trade, airlines and cruise liners. Singapore is connected to 15 cities across India with over 230 weekly flights (across various airlines). To penetrate pan India, we will look at more strategic partnership. We want to cultivate emotional connect with Indian travellers.
“There are 3Cs of marketing in India would be Conversations, Connections and Celebrations. We want to cultivate emotional connect with the Indian travellers and bring Singapore more close to Indians audience. We will be looking at targeting families (with children under 12 years), cruise, MICE travellers and educational trips for school student. In the coming years, we expect the MICE segment to grow significantly.”
“We will be promoting experiential and emotive marketing. Currently, the average length of stay of Indian tourists is six days, with new offerings we would like to extend the stay in Singapore,” informed Adrian Kong, Area Director India, Singapore Tourism Board.
Global economic and political uncertainties will probably continue to persist and there will be increasing regional competition for tourism dollars. However, Singapore can benefit from the projected tourism growth in the Asia-Pacific region. Singapore Tourism Board will continue to work closely with tourism partners to intensify our efforts and sustain quality tourism growth.
