Indonesians visiting S'pore up

Indonesians visiting S'pore up

SINGAPORE (Dow Jones): Singapore's tourist arrivals in August
rose 10.3% to 695,186 from a year earlier, the Singapore Tourism
Board said over the weekend.

Arrivals from Indonesia registered a growth of 5.7 percent,
totaling 96,863 visitors, the highest ever for Indonesia for the
month of August.

Growth in Singapore's tourist arrivals in August was less than
the 12 percent growth posted in July, when visitor arrivals
reached an all-time high of 706,318.

Japan generated the largest number of visitors at 101,730 -
7.1 percent more than in August 1999. The high visitor count was
due Japan's summer holidays, coupled with the improving economy
and sustained strength of the yen.

Arrivals from Taiwan, however, fell for the third consecutive
month and were down 7.7 percent. The two major typhoons in August
affected overall outbound travel from Taiwan, the Tourism Board
said.

It said, holiday arrivals from the top 12 markets grew by 6.9
percent. South Korea recorded the highest growth rate with an
increase of 50.9 percent. India generated a 25.4 percent
increase, followed by the U.S at 16.2 percent and China at 14.7
percent.

In business travel, China and India showed strong growth, with
increases of 32.9 percent and 32.8 percent each.

Separately, the average hotel occupancy rate rose 10.2
percentage points to 86.4 percent from a year earlier, while the
standard average room rate rose 8.9 percent to S$126.80.

Altogether there were 5.1 million tourist arrivals in the
first eight months of 2000, a 11.7 percent rise from the same
period a year earlier, the government agency said.