Budget carriers give Singapore its first one‐million visitor arrivals in a single month

SINGAPORE- The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) celebrated a major milestone in Singapore’s inbound tourism arrivals today – achieving its first one‐million visitor arrivals in a single month.

SINGAPORE- The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) celebrated a major milestone in Singapore’s inbound tourism arrivals today – achieving its first one‐million visitor arrivals in a single month. The July milestone marks the eighth consecutive month of record visitor arrivals. This record was preceded by arrivals of 950,000 in June 2010.From January to July, over 6.5 million of international travelers were recorded in Singapore, up by over 22% compared to the same period of 2008.

To celebrate the event, STB offered 10,000 goodie packs containing visitor privileges provided by participating attractions and industry partners, including ION Orchard, Central at Clarke Quay, Sentosa and Resorts World™ Sentosa. They were distributed to arrival visitors together with balloons, McDonald’s vouchers and Merlion collectibles. The event took place at Changi’s four airport terminals – Budget, Terminals 1, 2 and 3 –. Over at the Budget Terminal, visitors were entertained with boisterous lion dances and stilt walkers. The celebration at the Budget Terminal showed Singapore’s gratitude to low cost carriers, which greatly contributed to this remarkable tourism achievement.

Commenting at the celebration, Leong Yue Kheong, Assistant Chief Executive, International Group of the STB declared: “We wanted to celebrate this happy occasion with all our arriving guests as it is only through their support that we have achieved this milestone. The main celebrations at the Budget Terminal are in recognition of the increasing number of travellers arriving by low‐cost carriers. These make up about 30 percent* of air arrivals for the first half of this year. We are optimistic that visitor figures will remain strong for the remaining half of the year.”

Singapore is served by seven low cost carriers including home-base carriers Tiger Airways and Jetstar, the AirAsia group, Cebu Pacific (Philippines), Firefly (Malaysia), Lion Air and Mandala (Indonesia). Mandala made its maiden flight to Singapore last June with an Airbus A320 flying from Balikpapan and Jakarta.

Tiger Airways recently announced to increase by 55% its total number of frequencies to Greater China, offering 68 weekly services compared to a current 44. The airline will launch a new route to Taipei and increase frequencies to Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau and Shenzhen. Other Singapore-based carrier Jetstar will also bolster its operations. The airline launched this year a new route to Taipei and Osaka and plans to operate to Melbourne and Auckland (New Zealand), respectively from December 2010 and March 2011.
from 44 to 68

* Note: Visitor arrivals via low‐cost carriers constituted about 23 percent of total air arrivals from January to June in 2009 and 15 percent for the same period in 2008.

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Juergen T Steinmetz

Juergen Thomas Steinmetz has continuously worked in the travel and tourism industry since he was a teenager in Germany (1977).
He founded eTurboNews in 1999 as the first online newsletter for the global travel tourism industry.

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