PRICE-SENSITIVE Visitors
In reality, price-sensitive local travelers from other Southeast Asian nations are less and less interested in visiting Singapore. Indonesian, Thai and Vietnamese visitors in particular are starting to trip abroad.
Visitor visitors from these three nations are considerably below their 2019 levels. In contrast to 2023, both Thailand and Vietnam saw declines in guest visitors, with all other major markets seeing increases year over year.
Vietnam experienced the biggest decline, with Vietnamese arrivals at Changi dropping 33 % in 2024 compared to 2019, including a 46 % decline in November and a 42 % decline in December.
Thailand’s visitor arrivals to Changi dropped 26 % from their 2018 levels, including a 35 % decrease in November and a 29 % decrease in December.
In the much bigger Indonesian business, visitor arrivals at Changi were over 16 per share, including 22 per cent in November and 17 per cent in December.
For local travelers, attracting more visitors from these and other Southeast Asian nations may involve more affordable lodging options and a drop in aircraft departure fees.
India is another source of concern, with its visitor arrivals at Changi of 13 %  , below 2019 levels in 2024, despite the country’s benefiting other Southeast Asian nations ‘ booming overall growth in its outbound travel sector. For instance, Malaysia had 37 per cent more American tourists in 2024 compared with 2019.
Singapore’s substantial cost in comparison to other places and its visa-free policies are the main reasons why India has failed to grow. Singapore needs to lift card limits to American citizens to engage with Malaysia, which adopted a visa-free scheme for India in soon 2023, and different destinations.
In February 2024, Singapore implemented a visa-free scheme for Chinese citizens, which has helped to boost the country’s largest tourist export market. Another Southeast Asian nations lifting immigration restrictions for China has, however, been a little lessening the effect.
Foreign visitor arrivals at Changi were also 3 percent below last year’s level, despite quite weak demand over the previous two months of the year. In comparison to the same months in 2019, Chinese visitor arrivals at Changi decreased by 20 % in November 2024 and 23 % in December 2024.
Indonesia, India and Malaysia are Singapore’s largest supply industry after China. In comparison to 2019, Malaysia visitor arrivals at Changi decreased by 6 % in 2024, but also by a worrying 24 % in December.