Business is booming for restaurants, attractions at Sentosa

SINGAPORE : Restaurants and tourist attractions at Sentosa have enjoyed a 20 per cent increase in their business since Resorts World Sentosa opened a week ago.

Sentosa Leisure Group said it is seeing an average of 30,000 visitors each day during this Lunar New Year.

That is twice more than the daily average.

Sentosa Leisure Group added that the Merlion is its top attraction during the Lunar New Year.

It has seen a 30 per cent increase in visitors, compared to the same period last year.

And visitors to the island are also staying an average of one day as compared to half a day before.

Hotels like Rasa Sentosa Resort are also welcoming more visitors.

Rasa Sentosa is fully booked during this Lunar New Year period.

Anticipating more visitors to the island, it has decided to close for renovations for 10 months to add new rooms and facilities.

Ben Bousnina, general manager, Rasa Sentosa Resort, said: "(Now that) Resorts World has arrived...I do not think we will have enough rooms on the island, because the whole world would like to come to Sentosa Island which has become a world's destination."


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Singapore Casino Attracts Record Amount of Visitors

Resorts World Sentosa, the first casino to open in Singapore, has attracted 35,000 visitors in just two days. Visits to the Sentosa Island were up by 20% to 75,000, when compared with 2009’s tourist levels. In order to cope with demand, the casino management split the queues into Singapore residents and overseas visitors. While the former managed to get into the new resort relatively quickly, reports have suggested that the foreign visitors queue often surpassed the 100 metre mark, with some queuing for over two hours.

Only a few of the attractions at the casino opened over the weekend, but those that did took in a phenomenal amount of visitors, with patrons having to queue for 30-40 minutes for a table. The Singapore newspaper, Straits Times, has remarked that the queues were an unexpected “teething problem” for Resorts World Sentosa, with visitor surges throughout the weekend meaning that many were refused entry during peak times. Krist Boo, the vice-president of communications at Resorts World told reporters that the queues were often “overwhelming”, noting that they have had a “very good response to the casino opening”.


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Singapore Tourism Report Q1 2010 - new market report released

Singapore's tourism industry experienced a difficult H109 Visitor arrivals were down by 11.5%, to just 4.51mn in January-June. The Singapore Tourist Board (STB) attributed the poor performance primarily to the global economic crisis, but arrivals from North Asia were also reduced due to the effects of the H1N1 virus (swine flu) pandemic.

From the halfway point of the year, tourist
arrivals resumed an upwards trend. In December 2009, the STB said visitor arrivals stood at 8.71mn for January-November. Strong increases were recorded in arrivals from Indonesia, Malaysia and China over October and November. That said, we believe the most likely outcome for the year as a whole is a slight fall in arrivals from 2008’s 10.12mn arrivals, mainly as a result of the very poor first half.

…But The Longer-Term Prognosis Remains Positive
Although 2009 was difficult for the Singaporean tourism industry, there are reasons to be positive about the medium-to-long term as the global economy recovers. In particular, the opening of the two integrated resorts, at Marina Bay and Sentosa, in 2010 should help the island attract new tourists. Also in 2010, Singapore will host the first Youth Olympics and open the International Cruise Terminal.

Tiger Airways Announces IPO

In January 2010, Singapore's Tiger Airways unveiled its long awaited initial public offering (IPO) of stock in the company. The airline hopes to raise SGD273mn via the IPO, which it will use to fund aircraft purchases and pay down debt.

Some media reports said Tiger Airways had initially hoped to raise more money via the IPO, but an uncertain outlook for global investment markets and the challenging outlook for the airline industry may have both played a part in the downsizing of the offer.

Integrated Resorts

Opening Soon Four of the new hotels at the Sentosa integrated resort – Maxims Tower, Hotel Michael, Festive Hotel and the Hard Rock Hotel Singapore –start phased opening in late January 2010. The other two hotels at the resort are the Equarius Hotel and Spa Villas. Bookings for the hotels opened in H209. Other attractions at Sentosa will include a Universal Studios theme park, a casino and the world’s largest oceanarium. We believe Sentosa and other new resorts will do much to significantly boost Singapore’s tourism industry from 2010 onwards. We expect to report on the opening of the resort and its prospects in Q210.


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Tourist arrivals expected to increase due to integrated resorts

SINGAPORE: Tourism in Singapore is expected to experience a boom this year thanks to the opening of the integrated resorts.

Industry players say there are now over 950 travel agents in Singapore - an increase of over 100 from the previous year.

Travel agents told MediaCorp that there are now more queries on visiting Universal Studios Singapore.

Some operators are also increasing investments to expand their businesses and gain a bigger share of the tourism dollar.

The two integrated resorts are expected to bring in more tourists to Singapore in the next one to two years.

However, what is important is to entice tourists to stay one more night, which can help the tourism industry to reap more profits.

Tourists currently stay for about three nights.

"Right now, we are only getting about 10 million tourist arrivals," said Robert Khoo, chief executive officer at NATAS.

"I'm sure we can cater to a lot more. And I believe the Tourism Board has a much higher target for 2015. So I think there is still a lot of room for growth."


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Visitors try out new Singapore casino

Singapore has opened its first casino, with visitors flooding into the Sentosa island resort.

The casino welcomed its first visitors Sunday to coincide with the first day of the Lunar New Year.

As part of an effort by Singapore to increase its tourist numbers, the government approved the US$4.7 billion complex, which was built by Malaysia's Genting Group.

Sentosa island, which is visited by some five million people a year, was once a prisoner of war camp, housing Australian and British prisoners of the Japanese.

It is linked to Singapore's main island by a bridge.

The new casino complex will also house the new Universal Studios movie theme park and other five-star hotels.


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Tourist arrivals down 4.3%

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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Singapore tourism drops 4.3 per cent, hotels take hit

Singapore - Tourist arrivals in Singapore fell 4.3 per cent in 2009 to 9.7 million, the city-state's tourism board said Tuesday. Hotels were hit hard as visitors stayed away due to the economic recession and the H1N1 flu outbreak. A strong rebound in the last quarter allowed for a "very credible" performance over the whole year, tourism board chief executive Aw Kah Peng said. Visitor arrivals for the month of December reached a record 971,000.

However, tourism receipts over the year were estimated at 12.4 billion Singapore dollars (8.7 billion US dollars), down 19 per cent from a year earlier, the board said.

Hotels were hit hard as the average room rate fell 22.3 per cent to 191 Singapore dollars. Average revenue per hotel room - including rooms that remained vacant - was down 26.6 per cent to 146 Singapore dollars in 2009.

Overall room revenue for Singapore's hotels in 2009 was 1.51 billion Singapore dollars, a slump of 28.3 per cent from a year earlier.

The tourism board is to present its forecast for 2010 in March, Aw said, adding that "we expect the growth momentum from the last quarter 2009 to continue."

Hopes are riding on two new multibillion-dollar casino resorts, designed to attract visitors from across the Asia-Pacific region, to restore the fortunes of Singapore's ailing tourism industry.

Resorts World Sentosa, which includes South-East Asia's first Universal Studios theme park, has already opened some of its hotels and received the gambling licence for its casino last weekend.

Marina Bay Sands, located in the heart of the financial district, is slated to open in April at the earliest.

Read more: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/308233,singapore-tourism-drops-43-per-cent-hotels-take-hit.html#ixzz0fgfRcRMS


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