For subscribers
Hot, boring, expensive: What some Chinese tourists think of Singapore
Once a coveted destination for wide-eyed Chinese travellers, Singapore is now drawing some flak. What can it do to turn things around?
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Singapore’s compactness won over many Chinese tourists, who liked the convenience of the MRT, which could take them to most of the sights, says the writer.
ST PHOTO: BRIAN TEO
Follow topic:
If you want to understand how Chinese tourists feel about Singapore, you don’t have to dig through travel data or survey findings. Just scroll through Xiaohongshu, the Chinese social media app that’s part Instagram, part Pinterest and wholly fixated on documenting the travels and lifestyles of the young and mobile.
Since transplanting home six months ago from Beijing, where I was posted for more than six years, that app on my phone has been feeding me plenty of content on Singapore. There are photos of girls in flowy dresses gliding through Jewel’s indoor waterfall at the airport; boys with mouths open wide “drinking” from the Merlion’s water spout; couples with arm-heart poses under the arch at Sultan Mosque.
