Relax - Tourist numbers hit April record high

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LAST month, Singapore received 938,000 visitors – a record high for the month of April.

This also makes it the fifth month in a row that visitorship to Singapore has hit record levels.

The number of travellers who visited Singapore last month grew by 20.4 per cent from the same period last year.

The total number of days that they were estimated to have spent here also grew by 15.5 per cent from a year ago, to reach 3.7 million days.

Releasing the results yesterday, the Singapore Tourism Board said: “This can be attributed to the continued improvement of the economic climate, leading to growing visitor arrivals to Singapore.”

Earlier, it had forecast record arrivals of 11.5 million to 12.5 million for this year, with visitors spending $17.5 billion to $18.5 billion following the opening of the two integrated resorts.

Yesterday, it noted that Singapore hosted more tourists last month from 14 of the top 15 countries Singapore tourists come from, compared to a year ago.

The largest growth rates came from Thailand, with 57.5 per cent more tourists; Malaysia with 50.8 per cent more, and India with 30.8 per cent more.

Of the 15 top markets, only Britain saw fewer – 1 per cent fewer – travellers coming here.

The five countries from which the greatest number of tourists came from last month were Indonesia (163,000); China (92,000); Malaysia (77,000); India (73,000); and Australia (70,000).

They accounted for 51 per cent of the total visitor arrivals for the month.

The record number of arrivals also pushed up hotel-occupancy and room rates.

The average occupancy rate rose by 15 percentage points over the past year to reach 85 per cent last month. Budget hotels enjoyed the strongest growth.

The average room rate grew by 12.2 per cent in the same period to hit $211 last month.

As a result, hotel-room revenue leapt by 36.5 per cent to reach $158 million last month.

Mid-tier hotels, which had the steepest increase in room rates, also enjoyed the largest growth in revenue.

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Tourist numbers hit April record high

Wed, May 26 2010

Total number of visitors grew by more than 20 percent from the same period last year.

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