The Hindu Business Line : Singapore sees signs of growth in biz travel

Reaching out
Travellers from India are the fifth largest visitors to Singapore after Indonesia, China, Australia and Japan.
Tamil Nadu accounts for almost 15 per cent of the travellers to Singapore.
There has been a surge of tourists to Singapore from Coimbatore in 2005.

Coimbatore , April 22

Singapore Tourism Board sees signs of growing volume of business travellers from corporate India and businesses in interior secondary cities that may like to take advantage of Singapore's positioning as the regional headquarters and business networking hub.

Though right now leisure travellers constitute 50 per cent of about six lakh Indian travellers who visit to Singapore annually, the board feels the Indian business travellers segment which makes up 25 per cent of the total travellers from the sub-continent visiting Singapore, is likely to swell because of the changing profile of Indian companies which are turning global and seeking to expand their activities in the overseas markets.

"Top companies from India prefer to go to Singapore where they can conduct business as per the needs of the day. It is also the place for business networking and it will give the learning experience as well," said Ms Bridget Goh, Area Director (Southern India), Singapore Tourism Board's Chennai office.

Tourist volume

The board works closely with Indian corporates in conducting their business in areas such as the incentive conventions.

According to Ms Goh, the flow of visitors from India to Singapore, excepting during 2003 when the SARS scare hit tourist volume, had remained steady and in 2005, the total number from India to Singapore was 5.8 lakh.

"We are expecting the volume of Indian visitors to Singapore to touch seven lakh this year," she added.

Travellers from India are the fifth largest visitors to Singapore after Indonesia, China, Australia and Japan. Within India, tourists who visited Singapore from Tamil Nadu last year, worked out to 86,043 or 15 per cent and those who travelled from Chennai to Singapore alone were 74,447, which is some 18 per cent higher compared with 2004 when 62,758 travelled from Chennai to Singapore.

There has been a surge of tourists to Singapore from Coimbatore in 2005, thanks to the international textile machinery exhibition held there last year when 3,335 travellers visited to Singapore compared with 2055 in 2004.

The challenge for the board will be in achieving those travellers to repeat their visits to Singapore as much as to attractnew visitors, she said.

"To do this, we will be reaching out to the potential travellers in secondary cities through convincing mode of travel promotions both in support of our agencies and also directly," she said.

School trip concept

The board, which is promoting overseas school trip concept , has sought to take advantage of the overseas campuses set up by 12 international institutions in Singapore including the University of New South Wales and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

The overseas students can receive short and long-term academic exposures in these campuses. The special package for students worked out by the board in association with the Indian Airlines was availed last year by 10 schools from Tamil Nadu, including two schools in rural Virudhunagar and Erode.

The board is currently in the process of building a databank on the Indian schools so as to create awareness on education tourism.