DPA
Singapore’s tourism industry plummeted in the first half of 2009 as travellers cut back on their spending because of the global economic crisis, figures released Thursday by the Singapore Tourism Board showed.
Visitor arrivals came to 4.5 million from January to June, a decline of 11.5 per cent from the first half of 2008, the board said.
Tourism receipts were estimated at 6.4 billion Singapore dollars (4.43 billion US dollars), a decline of 13.5 per cent.
For the whole year, the board expected visitor arrivals to range from 9 million to 9.5 million, compared with 10.1 million in 2008.
Tourist receipts were expected to fall to 12 billion to 12.5 billion Singapore dollars from 2008’s 14.8 billion Singapore dollars.
In the first half of 2009, total room revenues of Singapore’s hotels reached 721 million Singapore dollars, down 33.2 per cent year-on-year, the board said.
The overall occupancy rate in the city-state’s hotels was 72 per cent for the first half of 2009, a drop of 11.1 percentage points from a year ago.