Here's why the influx of tourists failed to translate to larger gambling revenues

Half of the travelers only stay for a day or less.

There may have been an upsurge of tourists from China during the first half of 2016, but casinos were not meeting their target revenues as travelers in the city-state come and leave immediately.

According to OCBC, Singapore Tourism Board (STB) figures showed that visitor days from China for January to June 2016 rose only by 17% YoY despite the 55.2% YoY increase in visitor arrivals.

“In terms of length of stay, 24.0% of the visits were under one day and 37.7% were one day long. The increase in visits of these lengths (under one day and one day) accounted for between 9 to 10 ppt out of the 17.0% growth in visitor days,” OCBC said.

Analysts believe the short length of stay as well as STB’s marketing focus on Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities to be key reasons why the robust tourist arrival numbers have failed to translate into greater gambling revenue in the past half-year.

Earlier, STB revealed that Sightseeing, Entertainment, & Gaming expenditure dropped 21% YoY in 1Q16.