SINGAPORE, Jan 15 — The authorities will look beyond sporting events in a bid to draw in more visitors to Singapore and raise their spending amid growing competition for the tourist dollar in the region, said Second Minister for Trade and Industry S Iswaran.
Although world-class sporting events continue to attract tourists to the country, “we would really want to focus on events that would have not just a specific appeal to the sporting segment, but be able to be built into a larger lifestyle event so that other segments of the market will be attracted to be involved”, the minister said in an interview with TODAY.
He cited the example of the F1 races here which lures tourists in with fringe activities such as concerts.
Stressing that tourism sector growth cannot only rely on growing visitor numbers, Iswaran, who is also Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and Second Minister for Home Affairs, said Singapore has to focus on the element of quality, which refers to how long tourists stay, how much they spend and the kind of experiences they have.
Latest figures from the Singapore Tourism Board showed international visitor arrivals fell 3.6 per cent to 1.14 million in November last year, from a year ago.
For the first 11 months of last year, the number of tourists also fell 3.4 per cent to 13.72 million, compared with the first 11 months of 2013.
Based on the agency’s tourism performance report for the second quarter of last year — the most recent data available on the website — tourism receipts fell by 3 per cent to S$5.6 billion (RM15 billion). ― Today
