Updated hotel roadmap targets new concepts, sustainability and retraining for growth
A REFRESHED hotel Industry Transformation Map (ITM) launched on Tuesday (Oct 25) will focus on fresh hotel concepts, sustainability, innovation and future-proofing the workforce to support hotels’ transformation and long-term growth.
Through Hotel ITM 2025, hotel industry value-add is expected to have a real compound annual growth rate of 5.9 per cent by 2025, said Alvin Tan, Minister of State for Trade and Industry and Culture, Community and Youth at its launch.
He reiterated that tourism is expected to fully recover by the mid-2020s, adding that tourism receipts in 2022 are expected to come between S$10 and S$12 billion. International visitor arrivals are also expected to hit the higher end of the Singapore Tourism Board’s (STB) previously announced 4 to 6 million forecast.
One strategy under the refreshed ITM is to capture demand with novel concepts, including cross-sector collaborations such as wellness packages and even an e-gaming suite.
Sustainability will be developed as a key strategy, as a growth engine and a competitive advantage for resilience and destination attractiveness.
Technology solutions will be adopted, integrating front-of-house and back-of-house systems with data analytics, growing digital and data capabilities and harnessing emerging technologies.
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Finally, job redesign and worker upskilling and reskilling will be carried out, while young and local talents will be groomed to enable a strong local core.
The hotel of the future will require new roles such as sustainability coordinators, wellness directors and hotel revenue managers, said Kwee Wei-Lin, president of the Singapore Hotel Association (SHA).
STB said: “Since the launch of the first Hotel ITM in 2016, the hotel industry has posted strong growth with record-high average occupancy of 87 per cent and a total workforce of close to 35,000 in 2019.” Latest STB data shows that Singapore collected S$4.49 billion in tourism receipts in the first half of this year, and saw about 3.7 million tourists between January and September 2022.
Pre-Covid tourism receipts hit a record high at S$28 billion and brought in 19 million international visitor arrivals. Tan said that historically, the hotel industry has contributed more than 20 per cent of total TR. In 2019, it accounted for over 400 enterprises, employing over 34,000 workers.
Tan was speaking at the opening ceremony of the Food & Hotel Asia (FHA) Hotel, Restaurant and Cafe 2022, a four-day event held at Singapore Expo expected to draw over 800 food services and hospitality equipment suppliers and 25,000 attendees from more than 30 countries.
Compared to the previous event in pre-pandemic 2018, there is an increased focus on sustainability and food security this year as these issues gained urgency during the Covid-19 years, noted Janice Lee, the hospitality event’s director.
The event follows the FHA-Food & Beverage (F&B) in September, which was attended by over 57,000 individuals. This is the first year the FHA trade show is split into two events.
Having FHA as two dedicated trade shows demonstrates “the great interest in the sector, and the vibrancy of Singapore’s F&B and hospitality landscape”, Tan said. “We’ve made a very strong recovery from these Mice (meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions) events.”
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