Will Singapore’s visitor arrivals finally bounce back in 2016?

More Indonesians are shunning the city-state.

Visitor arrivals in the city-state are a shell of their former glory, as its once-strong Indonesian visitor numbers declining and showing no signs of slowing down.

In fact, visitor arrivals declined by 0.3% in 9M15, weighed down by the continued decline in Indonesian visitors, which shrunk by 11%.

This is definitely bad news, as Indonesians form the largest group of overseas visitors for Singapore, accounting for 17.7% of total visitors in 9M15, according to UOB Kay Hian.

“Indonesia (top feeder market at 17% of visitor arrivals) on the other hand has seen a 9.2% decline yoy in arrival numbers, which can be attributed to the country’s inflationary pressures, weakening rupiah and Singapore’s tightening of the local labour market,” UOB Kay Hian said.

Meanwhile, the bright spot in Singapore’s visitor arrivals was the resurgence of Chinese visitors, which rocketed by 41.7% in yoy.

“Overall, we expect a slight uptick in total visitor arrivals [for Hospitality REITs] to 15.3m for the year ending 2015, factoring in a conservative 1.4% yoy increase as we remain cautiously optimistic on a sector rebound,” UOB Kay Hian added.