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Following a record-setting year with 15.6 million tourist arrivals in 2013, Singapore’s visitor arrivals declined 3.0% in 2014 and have continued to decline in the first quarter of 2015. From January to April 2015, Singapore received 4,850,856 international visitor arrivals, a 5.4% decline over the same period in 2014. Leading the decline are Singapore’s top four feeder markets, namely Indonesia (-14.4%), China (-3.1%), Malaysia (-5.7%) and Australia (-9.4%). On the other hand, growth in visitor arrivals from India and South Korea, Singapore’s fifth and eighth largest feeder markets, remain encouraging at 3.4% and 9.9% respectively. The drastic decline in Indonesian arrivals may be attributed to a combination of reasons including a weakening rupiah which discourages international tourism, increased competition from domestic destinations, and decreased air connectivity as a result of AirAsia’s aviation incident which prompted safety investigations, leading to the cancellation of several weekly flight services between Bandung, Surabaya and Singapore in January 2015. To boost arrival trends, Singapore Tourism Board launched a US$20 million global marketing campaign last month, targeting key markets such as Indonesia, China and India.
HVS APAC HOSPITALITY NEWSLETTER.
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