Singapore’s Jan to Sept visitor arrivals down 1.7pct y-o-y to 12.7mln

Singapore recorded 1.23 million international visitor arrivals in September, down 2.2 percent year-on-year. The latest tally took the city-state’s aggregate visitor arrivals for the first nine months of this year, to 12.65 million, a decline of 1.7 percent year-on-year. That is according to an update from the Singapore Tourism Board (STB). About 72.9 percent of Singapore’s visitor arrivals logged in the January to September period – or 9.22 million – were overnight visitors. This cohort decreased by 3.3 percent year-on-year. Average length of stay of visitors in the period also declined: by 2.8 percent year-on-year, to 3.42 days. Singapore’s tourism offer includes a casino duopoly consisting of the Resorts World Sentosa property of Genting Singapore Ltd, and Marina Bay Sands, controlled by Las Vegas Sands Corp. During the first nine months of this year, the top five source markets for tourists to Singapore were: China (2.62 million), Indonesia (1.66 million), Malaysia (933,820), Australia (926,570) and India (868,490). Of the five markets, only China saw a single-digit year-on-year growth in contribution during the period, indicate the STB’s data. The tally of arrivals from China grew 4.8 percent year-on-year in the January to September period; while that from Malaysia edged up by only 0.2 percent. The cohort from Australia was up 0.7 percent. The number of visitor arrivals from Indonesia was down by 9.8 percent year-on-year in the first nine months of this year, and that from India was also down: by 5.9 percent. Of the five top feeder markets, only visitors from China and India had an average stay length that was higher than the average 3.42 days seen across all international arrivals. Though the stay length of both markets saw a decline in year-on-year terms. Stay length of visitors from China averaged 3.62 days, down by 4.3 percent; while travellers from India logged on average, 6.06 days: down by 5.4 percent. The reported January to September visitor tally represents circa 74.4 percent of the tourism authority’s lower-end full-year forecast of 17 million arrivals, which it mentioned in a February update about the performance and outlook for the inbound-tourism sector. The forecast of 17 million to 18 million visitor arrivals for full-year 2026 implies annual growth of between 0.6 percent and 6.5 percent.