TOURISTS, 1975-77

Mr Hwang Soo Jin asked the Minister for Finance (a) how many tourists visited Singapore in 1977, according to country of origin; (b) what was the average number of days spent by them in Singapore; and (c) what were the comparative figures for 1976 and 1975.

Mr Hon Sui Sen: Tourism is an important growth industry. During the recession in 1975, tourist arrivals did not decline but grew at 7.5%. The pace increased to 12.9% and 14.1% in 1976 and 1977, respectively. In 1977, tourist arrivals by air and sea reached 1.51 million.

All tourist generating markets in 1977 registered increases except for slight decline for USA and Australia. This was probably due to slower economic growth in the US, the devaluation of the Australian dollar and the special Apex fare introduced between Australia and UK which discourages stopovers between the two countries through the imposition of a stopover surcharge. The slight decline in tourist arrivals from Australia and USA has, however, not affected their relative ranking among tourist generating markets.

In the last three years, visitors from Indonesia constituted the largest proportion of total visitor arrivals followed by Australia and Japan. In 1977, Japan registered the highest annual growth rate of 35.4%. Other major tourist generating markets in order of ranking are Malaysia, USA and UK. Table I below gives a detailed breakdown of tourist arrivals and growth rates for 1975 to 1977.

In 1975 and 1976, the overall actual length of stay of all visitors remained at 3.4 days. Tourists from Southeast Asia (for example Indonesia, Hong Kong and Malaysia) generally stayed longer than those from Europe, USA and Australia. Data collection for the 1977 survey has just been completed and the data are being processed. Table 2 below gives details of the average actual length of stay of visitors by country of residence for 1975 and 1976.

TABLE 1: TOURIST ARRIVALS BY AIR AND SEA (By Country of Residence)

_______________________________________________________________ Tourist Arrivals Country Number Growth Rates (%) 1975 1976 1977p 1975 1976 1977p _______________________________________________________________ TOTAL 1,169,270 1,320,625 1,506,688 7.5 12.9 14.1 Indonesia 207,197 245,719 300,367 20.3 18.6 22.2 Australia 193,933 216,488 215,511 5.3 11.6 -0.5 Japan 118,668 139,539 188,921 8.6 17.6 35.4 Malaysia 109,700 115,277 128,433 -3.7 5.1 11.4 USA 106,241 122,303 118,076 2.0 15.1 -3.5 UK 74,925 73,292 78,708 -10.5 -2.2 7.4 Hong Kong 37,233 40,159 44,142 3.1 7.9 9.9 New Zealand 28,758 34,723 44,120 5.1 20.7 27.1 West Germany 31,045 35,555 39,909 21.6 14.5 12.2 France 22,772 28,845 31,031 19.9 26.7 7.6 Others 238,798 268,725 317,470 12.6 12.5 18.1 Note: Figures do not include visitors arriving by road and rail and Malaysians embarking from Peninsular Malaysia by air and sea. P: Preliminary. Source: Singapore Tourist Promotion Board.

TABLE 2: AVERAGE LENGTH OF STAY IN SINGAPORE (By Country of Residence)

__________________________________________________________ Average Actual Length of Stay Country (Days) 1975 1976 __________________________________________________________ TOTAL 3.4 3.4 Indonesia 3.2 4.0 Australia 3.2 3.1 Japan 3.1 3.3 Malaysia 2.5 3.9 U.S.A. 3.8 3.1 U.K. 3.5 2.9 Hong Kong 3.4 4.6 New Zealand 2.9 2.8 West Germany 3.4 3.3 France 3.4 2.8