Singapore bracing for coronavirus to hit tourism harder than Sars
- The island nation is forecasting a fall in visitors of up to 30 per cent this year, with a daily loss of up to 20,000 international arrivals
- The Singapore Tourism Board’s chief executive is preparing for a ‘longer, slower recovery than Sars’
As Sars upended global travel and kept people indoors in 2003, the island nation suffered a 19 per cent year-on-year drop in visitor arrivals. For 2020, Singapore is estimating a daily loss of 18,000 to 20,000 international arrivals, according to the Singapore Tourism Board.
Singapore Tourism Board chief executive Keith Tan said the drop could “very well increase” depending on how the outbreak unfolds, adding that tourism receipts would likely fall at a similar rate to arrivals.
Singapore recorded S$27.1 billion (US$19.5 billion) in tourism spending last year, S$3.2 billion of which came from its 3.6 million Chinese visitors.
Chinese nationals made up about one-fifth of all tourists to the city state, but Tan said Singapore was not “overly reliant” on China compared with other countries in the region. Chinese tourists accounted for 28 per cent of total arrivals in Thailand last year, and about a third of all visitors to Vietnam.
According to brokerage Maybank Kim Eng, the tourism sector accounted for 5.5 per cent of Singapore’s gross domestic product in 2018. That figure was 11.5 per cent in Thailand, 11.2 per cent in Vietnam, and 5.8 per cent in Malaysia.