STB (Singapore Tourism Board) said the number of visitors from India touched a record high for the third consecutive year, as 1.27 million from the South Asian country visited the Lion City in 2017. With this, Singapore has become firmly entrenched as the most favourite destination for Indians.
More than 1.1 million visitors from India arrived in Singapore in 2016. In 2017, the top ten source countries for Singapore were, apart from India, Malaysia, China, the United States, Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam, said STB in a statement.
STB was quoted by Little India as saying that their largest source markets were China, followed by Indonesia and India. The highest growth was witnessed from India (16 percent) and China was next (13 percent). Both of them together contributed to the increasing number of visitor arrivals, said the STB.
GB Srithar, STB’s Regional director for SAMEA, thanking Indian visitors for arriving in Singapore in record numbers, said that they were happy that the Southeast Asian island country continues to be viewed as a must-visit destination.
Outlook quoted Srithar as saying that STB will concentrate on improving and expanding its alliance with its travel trade partners and also promote its new brand effectively and creatively.
STB stated that the cruise industry also registered a growth in 2017, as passenger throughput grew by 17 percent to 1.38 million. They also saw a total number of ship calls growing by three percent to reach 421.
India was the largest source market for visitor arrivals in the cruise segment. It was reported that about 127,000 Indians utilized the cruise services to sail from Singapore in 2017, recording a year-on-year growth of 25 percent when compared to 2016.
This is said to be the second consecutive year of STB’s record tourism performance. Receipts from tourism increased by 3.9 percent to $20.3 billion (SGD26.8 billion) owing to an increase in visitor numbers from all of its top 10 markets and increased number of visitors from rich markets such as China, the United States, the United Kingdom and South Korea. The overall number of visitors grew by 6.2 percent to 17.4 million.
Lionel Yeo, CEO of STB, said that strong results were the outcome of efforts of STB together with its industry partners, besides a global economic recovery that was much better than expected, increasing rise in Asia-Pacific travel and better flight and cruise connectivity to the City-State.
Meanwhile, it was also said that India’s foreign leisure tourism in India was also poised to grow in the next few years. A report tabled in February 2018 estimated that by 2025, leisure departures of 13.9 million can be expected, which would lead to 19.4 million visitor arrivals from India overseas, of which a major contribution will be from tier two and three cities.
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