Will there be more tourists in Singapore this year?

Singapore Tourism Board expects visitor arrivals to moderate but new attractions will still come online to bolster tourism.

According to OCBC, in 2011, visitor arrivals were at 13.2m, up 13% YoY and topping the high-end of STB’s target of 12m-13m.

Here’s more from OCBC:

Against last year’s exceptional performance, the STB has cautioned that growth will moderate in 2012 because of uncertainty in the global economy. We note that the local hospitality sector does not need such a high growth rate to continue to do well. In 2005, the STB set a target of 17m visitor arrivals in 2015, which would imply 6.6% growth p.a. for 2012-2015. We believe this growth rate is achievable.

For 2012, all top 10 places of origin for visitors into Singapore are projected to have positive real GDP growth, with four of the top five (Indonesia, China, Malaysia and India) projected to have growth rates above 5%.

Exciting attractions and facilities coming online. In addition to the attraction of the maturing IRs (the new Transformers ride at Universal Studios in Resorts World Sentosa merits mention), the government continues to support the sector and attractions and facilities coming onboard will help to bolster tourism. These include Gardens by the Bay, River Safari, the International Cruise Terminal, Singapore Sports Hub and the National Arts Gallery.