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2016 was a record year for Singapore because of visitor arrivals with an increase of 16.4 million and highest spending by visitors. STB is targeting 25.1- 25.8 billion tourism receipts this year with a four percent increase compared to 2016.
“India is one market, in which the travel trade is very essential, that’s where we excite them for our tourism offerings and entice them to develop an interest in the destination. In order to do the same we recently organised a four-city roadshow starting from Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai which had participation from 45 stakeholders,” said Chang Chee Pey, Assistant Chief Executive- International Group, STB.
Indonesia, China, Malaysia and India come under the top four source markets for Singapore. Indonesia is No. 1 with six percent increase compared to last year, China No. 2 with a 36% increase, Malaysia No. 3 and India No. 4 with eight percent increase.
“From the last few years, the visitors coming to Singapore has diversified in terms of our top source markets. With the current onset of time, we are trying to diversify our tourism offerings for different travellers. Our focus will also expand towards cruise tourism other than airlines. By the end of 2017, Genting Dream will start travelling out of Singapore and we will be accentuating more on cruise tourism, to repackage and tell people about different ways of travelling to Singapore,” added Chang Chee Pey.
“Regional competition is intensifying as visitors are open for many choices and types of travel options. However, a lot of growth is expected out of the Asia-Pacific in the tourism landscape for markets like India and China. ASEAN regions through its new programme ‘VisitASEAN@50’ is also accentuating on improvising air connectivity to bring and benefit the ASEAN destinations together,” said G B Srithar, Regional Director, South Asia, Middle East & Africa-International Group, STB.
STB’ key focus this year will be to penetrate into the tier I & II cities together with the metros like Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Chennai. Also, it is accentuating on partnering with airlines, travel agents, banks and other corporates. “Since we have observed healthy numbers coming in from Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune, Lucknow, Jalandhar and many more cities, we will be focusing on tapping these markets,” informed Srithar.
STB has exclusively introduced ‘In Singapore Incentive and Revokes (INSPIRE)’ programme, a scheme to incentivise corporates to visit Singapore. The new addition has reduced the number of pax travel requirements for any travel group size to 5200 per pax. The INSPIRE scheme, therefore, allows the smaller groups from places like Hyderabad, Chennai and Bengaluru etc to travel with less number of people.
On the other hand, the INSPIRE-III scheme of the same programme will allow smaller groups from across India to go for incentive travel to Singapore. This will cater to only business events for a group of 200 pax.
“Idea is to provide incentive travellers to come to Singapore and enjoy a unique experience in MICE travel. Through these trips, these professionals will get an opportunity to come and experience our destination,” remarked Srithar.
Source: travelnewsdigest.in