Singapore Tourism Board: Arrival numbers down

SINGAPORE – Singapore received 9.7 million foreign tourists last year, registering a year-on-year percentage decrease of 4.3 percent, according to the figures released by the country’s National Touris

SINGAPORE – Singapore received 9.7 million foreign tourists last year, registering a year-on-year percentage decrease of 4.3 percent, according to the figures released by the country’s National Tourism Board (STB) on Tuesday.

Visitor arrivals from neighboring Malaysia and Vietnam reported a 18 percent growth and 10.9 percent increase respectively, attributed in part to aggressive airline and marketing promotions under the STB’s “2009 Reasons to enjoy Singapore” global marketing campaign. China’s Hong Kong (5.9 percent), Germany (4.8 percent) and the Philippines (3.1 percent) also registered growth last year.

The figures showed that visitor days were estimated at 39.1 million days, a year-on-year decline of 5.5 percent as compared with that of 2008.

The figures also showed that tourism receipts last year were estimated at 12.4 billion Singapore dollars (about 8.7 billion U.S. dollars reaching the upper-bound of the forecast of 12 billion Singapore dollars (about 8.5 billion U.S. dollars)- 12.5 billion Singapore dollars (about 8.8 billion U.S. dollars).

Indonesia, China, Australia, India and Malaysia were the state’ s top five markets in terms of tourism receipts last year, and these markets accounted for 49 percent of total tourism receipts last year.

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Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

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