THE number of visitors to Singapore fell by 4.3 per cent last year to 9.7 million, driving the revenue from the sector down 19 per cent to S$12.4 billion, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) said on Tuesday.
The number was still slightly higher than the STB's target of 9 to 9.5 million visitors, which, analysts said, was conservative.
The tourism industry fell short of 700,000 tourists in 2008 - the first time it missed its targets since annual goals were set in 2003.
But the outlook is brightening. Tourist arrivals in December reached 971,000 - the highest monthly level ever recorded. This added to the turnaround in the last quarter of the year, said STB chief Aw Kah Peng on Tuesday.
'It is a significant drop. But if you think about how airfares and, particularly accommodation, have fallen, those categories would have contributed to more than a 20 per cent drop,' she said, citing the global recession and H1N1 flu pandemic as the main culprits. 'Therefore, immediately it has a drag on total toruism receipts. So in that sense, we are not particularly surprised that our receipts have come down.'
Ms Aw said targets for 2010 would be announced in early March.
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