Bad luck: 1 out of 5 Chinese visitors slash Singapore out of travel bucket list

2 things can be blamed for it.

Visitor arrivals in the city remain flat despite a surge of Indonesian visitors, as tourists from China dwindle in quantity.

In a report by OCBC, Chinese visitor arrivals dropped in 1Q14 and by an average of 19.5% yoy from 14 Feb to 14 March, a change which may be attributed to the new tourism law in China and the MH370 incident.

After Paris, Singapore remains to be the top shopping destination for Chinese. Through partnerships with several Chinese tourism providers, the city’s edge as a top luxury lifestyle destination will be furthered by the government.

Here’s more:

As highlighted by data released by STB earlier this year, total Chinese tourism receipt in 4Q13 grew by
1% despite visitor arrival from China dipping by 31% over the same period.

During 2013, Chinese spending was also noted to reach c.S$3.0bn, exceeding the Indonesians (at S$2.3bn) for the first time since 2007. Furthermore, tourism shopping tax refund company Global Blue recently pointed out that Singapore remains the second most favoured shopping destination for the Chinese after Paris. This trend is expected to strengthen further as the government aims to position Singapore as a top luxury lifestyle destination through various partnerships with Chinese tourism providers. Besides the patronage from big Chinese spenders, the upscale and luxury hotel segments are expected to benefit from 1) stronger Indonesian visitor arrivals, 2) packed calendar of events in 2014, and 3) a potentially stronger corporate spending trend as the global economy continues to recover in 2014.