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.