No glitz, no glamour: Vanishing Chinese tourists leave Singapore’s luxury goods sales dull

Records 8th straight month of sales decline.

Singapore’s watches and jewelry segment recorded a 16.3% yoy contraction in sales for 1Q14, thanks mostly to declining arrivals from China in the past months.

According to UOB, the segment’s steady 8-month decline further contributed to April’s lacklustre retail sales figures.

“With the average Chinese visitor spending 33% of their total expenditure on watches/clocks/genuine jewelry each time they are in Singapore (survey data from the STB as of 2012), the decline in their visitorship over the past few months had impacted the retail sales performance of the luxury goods industry in Singapore,” noted UOB’s report.

Here’s more from UOB:

One of the segments in retail sales stood out with a larger-than-usual contraction – the watches and jewelry segment, with a 16.3% y/y contraction.

In fact this segment had declined for the past 8 months (except for Jan 2014 due to the Chinese New Year. We think that a possible reason for the weakness is due to the decline in Chinese visitors to Singapore since Oct 2013, when the Thai political crisis started.

The lesser take-up in the popular Sin-Ma-Thai group packages showed up as a cumulative decline of 21.5% y/y in Chinese visitor arrivals in the Oct-Mar 2014 period compared to the same period a year ago (latest March 2014 data showed a 19.5% y/y contraction in Chinese visitor arrivals)

It is thus hopeful that the on-going Great Singapore Sale would tempt more Chinese visitors to come to Singapore on non-group packaged tours.