Singapore visitors down 20%

Singapore visitors down 20%

SINGAPORE (Reuters): Tourist arrivals in Singapore in the first quarter of 1998 fell by nearly 20 percent to 1.52 million over the year-earlier period.

Singapore's Straits Times newspaper reported yesterday that the Singapore Tourist Board (STB) said visitor arrivals in March fell by 21 percent over the same month last year, but increased compared with February.

The STB counted 519,585 visitor arrivals in March, up slightly from February arrivals of 497,620.

Japan was Singapore's largest source of visitors with 80,605 March arrivals, but that figure was down 30.5 percent from March arrivals last year due to Japan's recent economic woes.

As expected, visitors from Indonesia and Thailand dropped nearly 30 percent to 63,405 and 15,050, respectively, while Malaysian visitors fell around 20 percent to 44,764.