More Chinese travellers choosing Singapore as destination for Golden Week holiday
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Demand from Chinese travellers has spiked - even doubling for Golden Week - and is going strong till the end of the year.
ST PHOTO: GIN TAY
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SINGAPORE – On the first day of China’s Golden Week holiday on Oct 1, Singapore’s Merlion Park was teeming with tourists hoping to snag a perfect vacation snap.
While many were speaking in Bahasa Indonesia, Tagalog and French, it was a variety of Chinese dialects that rose above the chatter.
“We wanted to come here for the diversity of the people and the food,” said a man from Chengdu who wanted to be known only as Mr Guo.
The 32-year-old works in technology and was in Singapore for four days with his partner, a 27-year-old accountant who called herself Ms Fu.
“It’s a short flight away, and it helps that people here speak the language too,” he said, adding that Singapore had piqued their interest after seeing information about it online.
The couple are among a growing number of Chinese tourists who have chosen Singapore as a holiday destination during Golden Week, which runs from Oct 1 to Oct 7.
In August 2024, the Republic saw 403,120 visitors from China. This was more than the combined total of less than 339,000 visitors from the next three source countries – Indonesia, India and Australia.
This comes nearly eight months after a mutual visa-free arrangement began on Feb 9,
Local tour operators and travel platforms also told The Straits Times that demand from Chinese travellers has spiked – even doubling for Golden Week – and is going strong till the end of the year.
As Singapore works to catch up to its 2019 peak of 3.6 million visitor arrivals from China, it has steadily built up its hotel room supply and airport capacity.
Seven new hotels are expected to be completed in 2024, and another nine in 2025, adding about 3,300 new rooms.
Changi Airport is currently connected to 31 Chinese cities via 16 airlines, according to Changi Airport Group (CAG). More than 430 flights depart for China every week, or over 60 a day.
Chinese travellers that ST spoke to on Oct 1 were mainly from Beijing, Chengdu and Shenzhen. On average, they planned to stay for four to six days.
Like Mr Guo and Ms Fu, many wanted to visit the same few attractions – the Singapore Zoo, Sentosa, Orchard Road, Marina Bay Sands, Gardens by the Bay and Universal Studios.
They cited a “change of scenery” from their home cities and Singapore’s reputation as a “garden city” as their main reasons for choosing to come here.
All had come on their own, and not as part of tour groups.
Visitor arrivals from China steadily recovering
Visitor arrivals for 2024 are inching back towards pre-pandemic levels, said the Singapore Tourism Board (STB).
In July alone – the start of China’s summer travel period – 413,000 Chinese visitors came to Singapore, exceeding the 390,000 in 2019.
About 1.9 million visitors from China arrived in the first seven months of 2024. This is 85 per cent of pre-Covid-19 figures, with 2.2 million visitors during the same period in 2019.
And in August 2024, CAG said air traffic between both countries reached a new high of more than 750,000 passenger movements.
This was 106 per cent of passenger traffic experienced in August 2019 and 149 per cent of August 2023’s figure.
China was also Changi Airport’s top market in five of the first eight months of 2024.
In August 2024, the top five Chinese cities by seat capacity for passengers travelling between China and Singapore were Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Shenzhen, based on data from aviation data consultancy OAG.
Overall, international visitor arrivals have remained steady, reaching 9.78 million in the first seven months of 2024.
“Amid demand for global travel and restoration of air capacity, and notwithstanding geopolitical and economic uncertainties, STB is on track to meet our forecast of 15 million to 16.5 million international visitor arrivals this year,” said STB’s executive director in charge of Greater China, Mr Andrew Phua.
Boost from Golden Week, 30-day mutual visa
Travel platform Klook said the number of Chinese travellers making bookings for services such as tours and attractions almost doubled between June and August, compared with March to May.
“The steady momentum from February through August suggests that this trend may continue into the later part of the year,” noted Ms Sarah Wan, Klook’s general manager for Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.
On travel platform Trip.com, combined bookings from China to Singapore between Oct 1 and Oct 7 – comprising flights, hotels, as well as tours and tickets – have surged by 43 per cent year on year as at Aug 31.
“This remarkable growth underscores the strong demand among Chinese travellers to visit Singapore,” said Trip.com’s Singapore general manager, Mr Edmund Ong.
Travel platforms said the 30-day mutual visa-free scheme has helped to smooth the travel process.
Chan Brothers Travel, one of Singapore’s biggest tour agencies, said that since the arrangement came into effect, it has seen a significant surge in inquiries and bookings “that remain robust and consistent”.
Mr Jeremiah Wong, the agency’s assistant director for marketing communications, noted that the arrangement “significantly enhances convenience by eliminating the need for complex visa applications for Chinese travellers to Singapore”.
Added Trip.com’s Mr Ong: “With the ease of entry between China and Singapore, we believe the momentum of spontaneous and frequent travel between both markets will be sustained.”
Cautious optimism
There is cautious optimism among major hotel groups in Singapore, with some seeing a small bump in bookings from Chinese travellers for October during Golden Week and beyond.
Accor hotel group said its hotels have seen a 20 per cent increase in guests’ length of stay during October. The group has more than 30 hotel properties in Singapore.
This is in line with the usual trends for Chinese travellers during Golden Week, said Mr Ollie Ansell, vice-president of commercial market strategy at Accor Asia.
He added that demand from such travellers ranges across its brands, from higher-end properties such as Swissotel The Stamford to strong interest in its “more accessible options” such as the newly opened Mercure Icon Singapore City Centre in Club Street, and Pullman Singapore Hill Street near City Hall.
Marriott International saw a 16 per cent increase in the volume of bookings from China as at end-August for its 15 properties here.
These range from the likes of The Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore and JW Marriott Hotel Singapore South Beach to Aloft Singapore Novena and Sheraton Towers Singapore.
“We expect the trend to continue and are optimistic that demand from China will continue to be strong for us as a whole, including during its October national day holidays,” said Mr Oriol Montal, Marriott International’s managing director of luxury in the Asia-Pacific, excluding China.
Overall, demand is not slowing. Analysts such as Mr Mayur Patel, head of Asia at OAG Aviation, expect an uptick in the later part of the year.
“We anticipate a strong travel period in December 2024, with Chinese carriers likely adjusting (flight) capacity to match demand based on seasonal factors,” said Mr Patel, adding that cargo and passenger traffic tend to be stronger in the latter half of the year for Asia.
Additional reporting by Caelyn Tan
Slew of bookings by Singaporeans heading to China
Several travel platforms told The Straits Times that many Singaporeans are choosing to head to China and spend a longer time there during the end-of-year peak holiday season.
During the Natas Holidays travel fair in August, Chan Brothers said bookings to China tripled compared with a year earlier. Destinations in south-western China, such as Yunnan, Chongqing and Chengdu, as well as Xinjiang and Tibet, proved to be popular.
For the first half of 2024, the travel agency said that it already saw a more than twofold increase in bookings to China, compared to the same period in 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic.
The 30-day visa-free arrangement has also meant that Singaporean travellers to China can enjoy longer holidays in China fuss-free, noted Mr Jeremiah Wong, Chan Brothers’ assistant director of marketing communications.
Mr Wong said the arrangement “significantly enhances convenience by eliminating the need for complex visa applications for Chinese travellers to Singapore”. Previously, Singaporeans could stay in China without a visa for only 15 days.
He added that their longer tours of up to 21 days and featuring destinations such as Chengdu, Yunnan, Fujian and Guangdong have been well received by travellers looking for a more immersive, relaxed holiday experience in China.
Similarly, Trip.com’s Singapore general manager, Mr Edmund Ong, expects a good number of bookings from both countries for the later part of this year, with many Singaporeans heading to China for the year-end school holidays.
“Travel from Singapore to China has shown strong growth,” noted Mr Ong, citing that the combined booking volume of flights, hotels, and tours and tickets grew by 322 per cent from Feb 9 – when the 30-day mutual visa kicked in – to Aug 31, 2024, compared with the same period in the year before.
Given the strong interest, he said that Trip.com has responded by rolling out targeted promotions and packages such as flight and accommodation bundles and travel packages to encourage travel between both markets.
For example, a few months ago, it introduced the Super China campaign, where a different city or region is highlighted every fortnight, to encourage travel to China.
