Singapore (Source: glogster.com)Singapore (VNA) - Singapore's visitor arrivals grew 0.9 percent to 15.2 million in 2015, however, the increase in visitors didn't bring in more income, said the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) in its annual report released on January 29.
The total tourism receipts declined by 6.8 percent to 15.7 billion USD largely due to a decline in BTMICE (business trips, meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) visitor arrivals and less spending by those coming from Indonesia, Australia and Malaysia.
This mixed performance came on the back of various headwinds such as an uncertain global economic outlook and weak currencies in some of Singapore's top source markets.
Notably, arrivals from Indonesia – Singapore’s largest market hit 2.7 million, down 10 percent. Meanwhile, Chinese arrivals - the second largest source of Singapore, grew 22 percent but their spending fell 5 percent from 2014.
The top growth markets for visitor arrivals were Taiwan (China) (+ 22 percent), India (+7 percent), the Republic of Korea (+7 percent).
Japan and the UK led the growth markets for tourism receipts with a respective increase of 6 percent and 4 percent.
STB forecast tourism receipts to be in the range of 15.7 - 16 billion USD and international visitor arrivals in the range of 15.2 million to 15.7 million in 2016.-VNA
