Hotels and businesses in Sentosa and HarbourFront have banded together to form a self-help group to boost trade.

The non-profit body, called the Sentosa HarbourFront Business Association(SHBA), aims to draw more business travellers who attend meetings in the area.

The group also wants travellers to go beyond their serious business and stay longer, as well as, open their wallets.

Members will also better coordinate their marketing campaigns for annual events such as Christmas light-ups and dance music festival ZoukOut.

The upshot of the new move is that visitors can expect more attractive offers across the 14 hotels, 210 restaurants, 26 leisure attractions and 300-plus retail outlets in the area.

Second Minister for Trade and Industry S. Iswaran, who launched the association on Thursday evening, said that the Sentosa HarbourFront precinct has a distinctive value proposition as a leisure destination and can work towards being a preferred venue for the meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions(Mice) segment.

He said that Sentosa HarbourFront can be "a very strong contender" among other resort destinations like Bali, Phuket and Hainan Island to attract Mice visitors.

SHBA chairman Goh Chye Boon said it is timely to set up a collective group to exploit the untapped potential of Sentosa HarbourFront.

Mr Goh, who is also the executive vice-president of operations for Resorts World Sentosa said: "In the past, we seemed to run our own show sometimes and never created enough capabilities to do stuff together."

"We must find to ways to multiply, in terms of not so much in numbers but more in terms of attractiveness"

SHBA is planning to launch its first event in April, in conjunction with the Easter holidays.