Oriental Travel and Tours managing director Stanley Foo said “I think business generally has been good, definitely much better than last year. I think we saw an increase of about 20 to 30 per cent compared to last year.”
However, the agency has seen a switch in the types of tourists coming to Singapore.
Before the pandemic, the largest groups of tourists were from China, India and Indonesia, but these tourists are now choosing to travel to neighbouring countries instead, noted Mr Foo.
“What happened is that hotel prices have increased, the costs of their tours have increased, and these tourists coming from China and India are actually changing their destination from Singapore to our neighbouring countries. Most recently, we have also seen our neighbouring countries coming up with new strategies to attract them to their countries,” he said.
He believes Singapore is now less attractive to these travellers because of the accommodation prices, adding that Chinese tourists “can spend three nights in our neighbouring country instead of one night in Singapore”.