The Hindu Business Line : Singapore plans positioning as MICE destination

In a bid to wriggle out its imagery as just a ‘leisure and shopping destination’, the Singapore Tourism Board is now planning to promote the country as a destination for MICE (meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions), education and healthcare too.

Says Mr Aloysius Arlando, Assistant Chief Executive – Business Travel & MICE, Singapore Tourism Board, the country, despite the present global turmoil, is confident of getting increased tourist traffic. “We do not want to overreact to the situation,” he said.

Hotel room inventories

According to him, Singapore is all set to have another 10,000 hotel room inventories by the end of next year, which is a 30 per cent increase over the present 34,000 inventories there. With an aim to promote it as MICE destination, the country is developing hotels and resorts with convention centres and exhibition booths.

Without giving out any numbers, Mr Arlando said to promote Singapore, the board has spent 30 per cent more last year in India than what it did in 2004-05. “We have also chalked a lot of below-the-line promotion campaigns to woo corporates and to attract students for higher education in Singapore.”

India fourth largest

Last year, India, with 7.5 lakh visitors a year, was the fourth largest market for Singapore after Indonesia (two million visitors), China (1.1 million) and Australia (7.7 lakh). Currently, as an industry, tourism contributes 4 per cent of the country’s GDP.

“With India and China as key target markets, we want to take it to 8 per cent by 2015,” he said.

On how successful is India’s tourism promotion there, he said Incredible India campaign is making waves in Singapore. “It’s really a very successful campaign.” Last year, India managed to draw 38,000 tourists from Singapore.

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