SINGAPORE - About 37,000 people have entered Singapore using the Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) scheme, with about 20,000 of these short-term visitors or long-term pass holders.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) said on Friday (Nov 26) that the 37,001 VTL travellers who have entered Singapore as at Thursday night comprise 20,510 vaccinated travel pass holders - who are tourists or long-term pass holders - 14,788 Singapore citizens and permanent residents, and 1,703 children aged 12 years and below.

The numbers are derived from vaccinated travel pass applications that CAAS has received. Children aged 12 years and below are unvaccinated, and do not need to apply for a vaccinated travel pass.

Singapore on Friday opened VTLs with six more countries, bringing the total number of places it has VTL arrangements with to 27. The six new VTL countries are Cambodia, Fiji, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Turkey.

Pre-Covid-19, the 27 countries, which include previous announcements such as the United States, Germany and Britain, made up about 60 per cent of total daily arrivals at Changi Airport. With travel quotas in place now, the number of travellers coming in, though, are far fewer than before.

CAAS said that as at Thursday, it had issued 79,335 vaccinated travel passes to long-term pass holders and foreign travellers for trips to Singapore between Sept 8 and Jan 27.

A total of 12,354 of these passes went to travellers from Britain, 10,922 to those from Germany, and 10,213 to those from the US. These three countries so far have the most number of approved vaccinated travel passes.

But vaccinated travel passes issued to travellers from Malaysia, Indonesia and India - applications for which opened just this week - are fast catching up.

Together, they already account for 17,134 vaccinated travel passes, including 6,704 travel passes issued to travellers from Malaysia. For Indonesia, the figure was 4,798, and for India, 5,632.

Travellers from Australia have been issued 6,280 vaccinated travel passes, South Korea visitors have received 5,338, and France, 6,055.

In most instances, the number of long-term pass holder applicants exceeded that of short-term visitors.

Among countries with a larger travel volume, only Australia, South Korea, Indonesia and India have had more short-term visitor applications than long-term pass holder ones.