Singapore tourist arrivals slip in May, but remain at over a million

SINGAPORE’S international visitor arrivals exceeded a million in May for the third straight month, but slipped from April’s post-pandemic high.

Tourism arrivals slid to 1.11 million in May, down from 1.13 million recorded in the preceding month, based on the latest figures from the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) on Monday (Jun 12). But the month’s arrival numbers were more than 2.5 times the 418,458 visitors recorded in the corresponding month in 2022, even as arrivals remained below the 1.5 million visitors recorded in May 2019, before the pandemic.

May’s decline compared to April, a trend also observed in pre-pandemic 2017 to 2019, could be due to seasonal effects, said Cushman & Wakefield head of research Wong Xian Yang, who added that visitor arrivals in May were possibly the result of “dissipated post-public holiday travel demand” from key source countries.

Indonesia, for the 14th month, remained the top source of visitors to Singapore, recording 183,758 visitors in May – though this was lower than the 220,067 arrivals in the previous month.

The next-largest source country was India, overtaking Malaysia with 130,438 visitors in May. This was higher than the 97,029 tourist arrivals from India in April.

Malaysia, coming in third, posted 98,347 visitors, up from 98,190 in April. In fourth place was China, with 95,613 visitors, compared with 90,725 tourists in April. Australia fell to fifth place during the month, with 79,669 visitors, down from 92,937 in the month before.

“Australians had their Good Friday and Easter holiday from Apr 7 to Apr 11, while Indonesians’ Idul Fitri holiday was from Apr 21 to Apr 26,” noted Wong. “Visitor arrivals from these two countries dropped by about 50,000 from April to May.”

OCBC chief economist Selena Ling noted an overall upward trend in visitor arrivals, “but not necessarily in a straight-line fashion”.

“We have seen some deceleration in China’s economic activity indicators in April to May onwards, and the Labour Day holidays saw strong domestic tourism numbers, but less so for outbound tourism data,” she said.

In the year to date, Singapore has recorded some 5.2 million visitor arrivals, against the 12 million to 14 million arrivals that STB expects to hit in the full year.

Wong said: “Between January and May 2023, visitors arrivals from India and China are at about 70 per cent and 20 per cent of pre-Covid levels respectively (January to May 2019), falling behind visitor arrivals from Malaysia and Australia, that registered about 94 per cent of pre-Covid levels in the same period.”

Ling added: “The overall macroeconomic outlook remains uncertain and regional growth momentum may ease in H2 2023, albeit this has not dampened the enthusiasm for revenge travel at this juncture.”

However, they both believe that 2023’s full-year tourist arrivals could meet STB’s prediction.

Wong said that the highlighted gap in arrivals “could close amid the expansion of global flight capacity and anticipated resurgence of Chinese and Indian visitors”.

Ling flagged upcoming key events such as the Formula 1 race, a potential pick-up in business travel, and strong fly-cruise demand.

Although China has not been a key contributor to tourist arrivals in the year to date, she also remains hopeful for improved Chinese outbound tourism numbers in the latter half of 2023, “despite recent market disappointment over the pace of Chinese reopening”.