Tourist arrivals up 7.3% in Q1, but spending dips 0.5%
Festive season may be a reason as some visitors stay with family, spend less: Tourism lecturer
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Tourists in Chinatown. Some 4.6 million visitors arrived in Singapore in the first quarter, but tourist spending dipped to $6.7 billion because of less spending in areas such as shopping and accommodation.
ST PHOTO: LEE JIA WEN
Tiffany Fumiko Tay
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Some 4.6 million visitors arrived in Singapore in the first quarter of this year, a 7.3 per cent increase from the same period last year.
But tourist spending dipped 0.5 per cent to $6.7 billion because of lower spending in areas such as shopping (-9 per cent), accommodation (-13 per cent) and food and beverage (-16 per cent), the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) said yesterday.
Gazetted hotel room revenue for January to March, meanwhile, grew by 8.5 per cent year on year to reach an estimated $1 billion, while the revenue per available room increased by 4 per cent due to higher average room and occupancy rates.
Visitors spent more on sightseeing, entertainment and gaming - an increase of 6 per cent to $1.5 million - while a miscellaneous category that covers things like airfare expenditure on Singapore-based carriers, local transportation and business and medical tourism, grew by 22 per cent to $1.8 million, forming the largest share of spending.
China, Indonesia and India remained the biggest source of visitors and spending, with nearly a million Chinese visitors spending $1 billion, excluding sightseeing, entertainment and gaming. About half of this was spent on shopping.
Ngee Ann Polytechnic's senior tourism lecturer Michael Chiam said the discrepancy between accommodation spending and hotel revenue can be attributed to Chinese New Year, with some visitors staying with relatives instead of at hotels.
The higher volume of arrivals, meanwhile, would lead to an overall increase in revenue for hotels, Dr Chiam said.
The dip in F&B spending could also be due in part to the festive season, he said.
"If relatives visit, it is probably more of a gathering at home, not so much at restaurants, so things like catering are not factored in and that's probably one of the reasons," said Dr Chiam.
