Singapore's overall visitor arrivals dropped 0.6 percent on-year from January to August despite a surge of 19 percent in Chinese visitor arrivals, according to statistics from the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) on Thursday.
A total of 10.2 million tourists visited Singapore in the first eight months of the year, 0.6 percent lower than the same period last year. Travellers from Southeast Asia saw the largest decline of 7.5 percent, among which, visitors from Indonesia and Malaysia fell 11.2 percent and 4.4 percent respectively.
The number of Chinese visitors, however, saw a strong rebound to 1.46 million, up 19.3 percent year on year. The hotel sector also saw a drop in room rate and occupancy rate, with the average room rate dropped 5.4 percent to 242 Singapore dollars, while standard average occupancy rate dropped 0. 6 percent.
Singapore's international visitors arrivals saw the first decline last year since 2009, and STB expects visitor arrivals to grow by up to 3 percent this year.
Latest comments