Shanghai residents see Singapore as top travel destination after STB campaign with 3D billboards

SINGAPORE: After 3D billboards promoting Singapore were shown in different cities around the world, residents of Shanghai who saw the ads said Singapore is their most considered holiday destination, more so than Japan, Macau, New Zealand, and even the Big Apple itself, New York.

The video below, titled Made in Singapore, around the world, from the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), was shown earlier this year in five venues: Grand Indonesia (Hotel Kempinski) in Jakarta and Xintiandi Style I in Shanghai on Feb 23, at Times Square in New York on Feb 26, Piccadilly Circus in London on March 4, and at the Phoenix Palladium in Mumbai on March 7.

As of late last month, according to YouGov Global Travel Profiles, Jakarta (36 per cent) and Mumbai (31 per cent) had the highest number of residents who said they remembered seeing the ads in the previous two weeks promoting Singapore as a travel destination.

Shanghai residents ranked next, with 21 per cent saying they recalled travel ads for Singapore during that time.

Conversely, awareness of the travel campaign in the two non-Asian cities was the lowest, at only 6 per cent in New York and 3 per cent in London.

When asked whether they had heard positive and negative views of Singapore as a travel destination in the news or from friends and family in the past two weeks, Jakarta (75 per cent) and Shanghai (72 per cent) had the highest numbers of people who responded that they had heard good things about Singapore.

Over three-fifths (69 per cent) of Mumbai residents and more than half of New Yorkers (59 per cent) said the same. However, among Londoners, only 45 per cent said they’d heard good things about Singapore in the past fortnight.

On the plus side, though, in all five countries, less than 5 per cent of residents said they had heard negative feedback on Singapore as a travel destination in this period.

Among all the cities, when respondents who had seen the STB ads were asked if they would consider Singapore a leisure travel destination compared with other places, the residents of Shanghai had the most positive response, choosing Singapore over other popular travel spots.

Mumbai residents made Singapore their second choice after Dubai, while New Yorkers chose Singapore third after Hawaii and Saipan. Jakarta residents chose Singapore fourth after Bali, Lombok, and Japan.

Singapore ranked the lowest among Londoners, eighth after Italy, Spain, Canada, Portugal, France, Bali and Switzerland. /TISG

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