Singapore’s tourism sector will take a significant hit, with visitor arrivals estimated to fall by 25-30 percent this year. (Photo: reuters) Hanoi (VNA) – Singapore’s tourism sector will take asignificant hit, with visitor arrivals estimated to fall by 25-30 percent thisyear due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, said the Singapore Tourism Board(STB) on February 11.
The coronavirus outbreak has significantly impacted tourists,especially those from China, which accounts for about 20 percent ofinternational holidaymakers to the city-state, according to the board.
STB Chief Executive Keith Tan said in a pressconference that Singapore’s tourism sector is facing its biggest challengesince the SARS epidemic in 2003.
The country is losing an average of 18,000 to 20,000 internationalvisitors per day and most of the lost visitors are Chinese. Meanwhile, travellers from other countries were alsodeferring or cancelling trips to Singapore.
Singapore has suspended entry to tourists with arecent history of travel to China and suspended visas for Chinese passportholders to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
As of February 10, the country had reported 43 casesof nCoV, of whomseven were in critical care.
Singapore on February 7 raised its alert for coronavirus outbreakto Orange afterthe country recorded four infection cases of unknown origin.
Tan said there are no reasons for other countriesto have travel advisories on Singapore and expressed his confident in themeasures the Government has in place to contain the outbreak.
During the SARS outbreak in 2002-2003, Singaporeexperienced a 19 percent drop in the number of tourists.
Tourism contributes about 3-4 percent to thecountry’s economy. Last year, visitor arrivals rose 3.3 percent to a total of19.1 million, and they spent a total of 27.1 billion SGD (19 billion USD) intourism receipts. /.
VNA
