Singapore tourist arrivals grow for 7th straight month in August to 728,744

SINGAPORE’S international visitor arrivals grew for the 7th straight month in August, once again setting a record from the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, based on the latest figures from the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) on Wednesday (Sep 14).

There were 728,744 arrivals in August, slightly higher than the 726,602 visitors recorded in July, though the new figure remains far below the 1.7 million recorded in August 2019 before the pandemic.

“The slowdown in growth could be due to seasonality factors,” said Wong Xian Yang, head of research at Cushman and Wakefield Singapore. “Pre-pandemic, visitor arrivals tend to peak in June or July and trend lower during the months of August to November and pick up sharply again in December.”

Nonetheless, he expects international visitor arrivals could continue to increase in light of relaxed travel restrictions and events in the pipeline.

For the 5th consecutive month, Indonesia was the top source of arrivals, sending 108,252 visitors, though this was down from 119,072 in July.

India also held its 2nd place ranking for the 5th straight month in August, sending 76,249 visitors, up from 75,105 in the previous month.

Reversing the trend from the preceding 2 months, Malaysia overtook Australia in August to regain the 3rd spot on the list of top arrivals. Malaysia accounted for 63,905 travellers in August – up from 61,572 in July – while arrivals from Australia fell to 56,917 from 68,367.

“A fair share of Australia visitors were either visiting friends and family or transiting onwards,” said Govinda Singh, Colliers’ executive director for hotels and leisure in Asia. A slowdown of visitors from Australia was expected with the end of the summer holidays, he added.

Wong noted that from 2017 to 2019, Malaysia was always ranked 4th on the list of top arrivals, behind China, Indonesia and India.

This has remained “relatively the same” so far this year, with the exception of China, and is not expected to see significant changes until outbound travel from China returns, he said.

China accounted for just 14,735 visitors in August, compared with 397,070 in the corresponding month in 2019. This was also down from July’s figure of 16,621 visitors.

In the year to date, Singapore has reported some 3 million international visitor arrivals, against STB’s expectation of 4 to 6 million international visitors for the year announced in July.

Singh said: “Should Hong Kong and Japan reopen, which could happen in Q4 this year, there may be another jump in arrivals during the year-end holiday season.”

Heading into 2023, however, he said that “more subdued growth could be on the cards”, driven by continued inflation, high air ticket prices, the possible reopening of Hong Kong as a hub and the end of revenge travel.