SINGAPORE – It wasn’t all bad news on the Singapore tourism front in 2009. While visitor numbers declined, tourism receipts reached a record high and Changi Airport defied the odds to achieve a slight growth in full-year traffic.
The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) went to the ASEAN Tourism Forum 2009 in Hanoi, armed with the news that the industry generated an estimated S$14.8 billion in tourism receipts, a growth of 5% over 2007.
The total is a new record for Singapore “despite the impact of the global economic slowdown in the second half of the year”, STB told the media at a press conference.
Visitor arrivals dropped by two per cent to level off at 10.1 million in 2008 but visitor days grew 6.9 per cent to reach 39.8 million days.
Chief executive Aw Kah Peng, making her first appearance at ATF, called it a “credible and robust performance”.
While the growth in traffic at Changi was the smallest in five years, the airport managed to chalk up a record 37.7 million in passenger traffic in 2008.
But the entire Singapore tourism sector is braced for more challenging times ahead.
The STB has set up a task force with representatives from the Association of Singapore Attractions (ASA), Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS), National Association of Travel Agents Singapore (NATAS), Singapore Hotel Association (SHA) and Singapore Retailers Association (SRA) to address needs in the downturn and build for the long-term.
STB is working in tandem with the travel trade to develop a global marketing campaign to drive visitorship to Singapore, with a particular emphasis on regional markets.
Source: STB P@ssport
