Singapore is world's fifth most-visited city

Singapore

SINGAPORE overtook New York to become the fifth most-visited city in the world last year, and was ranked fourth worldwide for visitor spending in the 2017 Mastercard Global Destination Cities Index.

With 19.41 million visitors last year, Bangkok topped the list of 132 cities for the third year running; London and Paris took second and third place respectively, while Dubai pipped Singapore to emerge fourth.

The number of visitors coming to Singapore last year - 13.11 million - was 8.8 per cent higher than the figure for 2015. The numbers in the Mastercard index differ from those of the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), which had a higher number of visitors coming to the Republic last year - 16.4 million.

Eric Schneider, senior vice-president for the Asia-Pacific for Mastercard Advisors, suggested that the difference could be due to methodology.

The Mastercard index, which takes into account public data on international overnight visitor arrivals and cross-border spend, factors in inbound air and cruise arrivals, but leaves out land arrivals, such as those from across the Causeway.

Meanwhile, visitor expenditure in Singapore swelled from US$13.07 billion in 2015 to US$15.69 billion last year. This year, the index forecasts Singapore to receive 2.6 per cent more visitors and 0.3 per cent more in spending.

Just over three-quarters of visitors (76.7 per cent) come here for leisure, and 23.3 per cent, for business. This is the trend across the Top 20 cities.

Deborah Heng, country manager for Mastercard Singapore, said: "With tourism a key contributor to Singapore's economy, it's also notable that this year-on-year growth in visitor arrivals is accompanied by the highest overall tourist expenditure in Asia. This demonstrates how collaboration between the public and private sectors can drive the right results for the local economy."

Dubai easily eclipsed other global cities in visitor spending, ringing up US$28.5 billion in tourism receipts last year; it is projected to receive a solid 10.2 per cent more this year.

New York was in second place with US$17.02 billion, and London in third with US$16.09 billion.

Where spending is concerned, the Asia-Pacific as a region outstripped North America (US$55.02 billion) and Europe (US$74.74 billion), by raking in US$91.16 billion last year.

In general, Asia-Pacific cities fared well in the index. Nine Asian destinations made the Top 20 list; and of the Top 10 fastest-growing cities by compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2009 to 2016, seven were Asian. Osaka led the pack.

Growth for the region isn't likely to falter anytime soon, buttressed in part by robust intra-regional travel. Mr Schneider said the drivers for flourishing travel include better flight connectivity, the relaxation of visa restrictions, the depreciation of some currencies and the surging number of outbound travellers from China.

China was the second biggest source market of visitors for Singapore last year, just behind Indonesia, going by data from the STB. But for the first seven months of this year, China was in the lead with 1.9 million visitors; visitors from Indonesia totalled 1.74 million, going by STB's preliminary estimates.

Total visitor arrivals for Singapore for the January-July period was up 3.8 per cent year on year at 10.18 million.