Visitor arrivals from the Chinese mainland to Singapore grew 5 percent year on year to an estimated 1.55 million in the first half of 2017, ranking the first among Singapore's top 15 visitor-generating markets, according to the Tourism Sector Performance report released by the Singapore Tourism Board on Monday.
In the first six months, the Chinese mainland visitors spent an estimated 1.88 billion Singapore dollars (about 1.38 billion U.S. dollars), excluding expenditure on Sightseeing, Entertainment & Gaming, in Singapore, 10 percent more than that for the same period of last year.
Meanwhile, the total international visitor arrivals to Singapore grew 4 percent year on year to 8.5 million, and Singapore's total tourism receipts from them grew 10 percent year on year to 12.7 billion Singapore dollars in total, or grew 12 percent year on year to 10.53 billion Singapore dollars excluding expenditure on Sightseeing, Entertainment & Gaming.
The report says among Singapore's top 10 tourism receipt markets, the Chinese mainland, Indonesia and Malaysia registered the highest absolute year-on-year growth in tourism receipts. But the top three tourism receipt markets were the Chinese mainland, Indonesia and India, which jointly contributed 38 percent of tourism receipts to Singapore in the first six months, excluding expenditure on Sightseeing, Entertainment & Gaming.
Visitors from Hong Kong and Taiwan declined 17 percent and five percent year on year in the period, respectively.
In the second quarter of 2017, Singapore's international tourist arrivals rose 5 percent year on year to 4.2 million, and the tourism receipts from them also increased five percent year on year to 6.4 billion Singapore dollars in total.
The Chinese mainland, in the second quarter, had visitor arrivals to Singapore declined three percent year on year, and their expenditure decreased eight percent year on year. However, the Chinese mainland was still the top tourism receipts market for Singapore, as Chinese visitors spent 810 million Singapore dollars, excluding expenditure on Sightseeing, Entertainment & Gaming, in the period. (1 singapore dollar = 0.73 U.S. dollar)
