Tourism in Singapore

A History of Tourism in Singapore

Just like in the rest of the world, the tourism industry in Singapore has also blossomed rapidly, proving itself to be a good source of revenue for the country. Here’s a brief run through of Singapore’s history in tourism.

In the 1950s, after the World War II, measures were taken to step up the number of tourists arriving at Singapore. And as planned, the number of tourist arrivals began increasing, slowly, but steadily and constantly.

By the 1970s, the number of tourist arrivals had begun increasing at a tremendous rate, but unfortunately, in 2001, due to the September 11 terrorist attacks in America, it dropped slightly.

After this, most thought it would continue rising, but because of the sudden attack on Singapore by the deadly illness, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and the war in Iraq, the tourism rate continued to decline.

However, even though the entire Asia was disadvantaged by its financial dilemma in 1997 and 1998 as well as the Indonesian Haze, it stepped up again in 1999, and Singapore’s tourist arrivals have continued growing ever since.

Here are some statistics of the number of tourist arrivals in Singapore:

(Tourist arrivals are calculated at the end of December of every year)

1999: 616,031

2000: 691,639

2001: 670,277

2002: 709,677

2003: 691,421

2004: 801,012

2005: 828,876

So go on ahead, and find out more about how Singapore has overcome its tourism-related problems to become a hotspot for tourists.

Purpose of visit	2000	2001	2002	2003
Holiday	48.13%	46.36%	46.89%	44.3%
Business	16.42%	15.57%	15.03%	15.5%
Business and pleasure	2.52%	2.45%	2.43%	2.3%
In transit	10.06%	10.59%	7.55%	6.9%
Visiting relative	6.40%	7.00%	6.88%	7.4%
Conventions	2.74%	2.55%	2.64%	2.7%
Education	0.62%	0.71%	0.70%	0.7%
Others	4.80%	5.32%	9.47%	11.6%
Not stated	8.31%	9.45%	8.50%	8.6%