BANGKOK – Deputy chairman and CEO of the Singapore Tourism Board, Lim Neo Chian, says he is confident that tourism will manage the current instability in global stock markets.
“Fingers crossed, the turbulence in the stock market will not affect us. The macro environment is still pretty good so we can feel confident,” he said.
Lim said the targeted number of visitors to Singapore – 17 million by 2015 – could be managed.
“At any one time today there are about 70, 000-80,000 tourists in Singapore. We are planning for 200,000 per day but with the new (infrastructure) capacity in the pipeline I think we can handle it.
“Barring any major upheaval, the private sector will still come forward to invest in new hotel rooms,” he said.
“Manpower is a challenge. We believe there will be 50,000-60,000 jobs to be filled so we are looking at training older workers and housewives. Plus we are liberalising the use of foreign workers.
“The (Singapore) government is watching the situation very closely and we should be able to handle these challenges if we put our minds to it,” said Lim.
-by Ian Jarrett
