Singapore’s tourism set to beat Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines due to visitors from China and India

SINGAPORE: Singapore has been performing better than other countries in the region in terms of tourism, and 2025 is shaping up to be a record-breaking year, according to a recent analysis from the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC).

Moreover, the city-state is set to welcome more tourists than it did before the Covid-19 pandemic struck. The surge in the sector is in large part due to an influx of travellers from China and India.

Singapore is expected to welcome 16 million tourists in 2025, according to a Feb 24 (Monday) report in Travel and World Tour. This would mean a 9.6% increase from 2019, the year before the pandemic shut down international travel.

The report says that this figure sets the city-state ahead of key destinations in Southeast Asia, which include Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

Visitors from India are expected to reach 1.25 million this year. In comparison, there were 1.11 million Indian tourists in 2019. As for China, the report predicts that there will be 2.8 million visitors to Singapore this year, and trends say that this figure will only grow in the years to come despite the slow increase in outbound travellers from China after the pandemic.

“Singapore is setting the pace for global tourism growth, breaking records, and outpacing its regional rivals. With soaring visitor numbers expected from India and a return of Chinese travellers, the city-state’s tourism engine is running at full throttle,” said WTTC President and CEO Julia Simpson.

HNR Hotel News said in a Feb 20 report that travel and tourism are expected to contribute $66.1 billion to the economy of the city-state. This is equal to 9.8% of Singapore’s Gross Domestic Product. Moreover, the sector is also expected to support 570,000 employees.

This is also expected to increase in the next few years, and tourism is projected to contribute nearly $80 billion to the economy by 2030, a growth of nearly 20 per cent from 2019. By then, the sector is expected to support more than 637,000 jobs, an increase of more than 90,000 since 2019.

Elsewhere in the region, Malaysia is expected to surpass its pre-pandemic levels in 2019 by almost 10%, as well as go beyond the high it reached in 2016 by 7%.

Thailand’s tourism sector is expected to have an exceptional year, with arrivals from around the globe projected to increase by 5%, and tourism in the Philippines is also nearing the peak it set in 2019. /TISG

Read also: Why Malaysia missed Its 2024 tourism target—And what can be done?