S'pore sees less tourists

S'pore sees less tourists

SINGAPORE (AFP): Tourist arrivals in Singapore fell 4.8 percent year-on-year to 655,108 in August but registered the highest total for a single month so far in 1996, officials said.

Arrivals from Japan, Singapore's largest tourist market, were down and declines were also posted in traffic from Indonesia, Taiwan, Malaysia and South Korea, but more American, British and Australian tourists came in August.

"Japanese arrivals fell by 14 percent, due mainly to a diversion of Japanese traffic to Hong Kong in the run-up to the latter's handover to China in 1997," a statement from the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board (STPB) said.

Arrivals in the eight months to August were up 2.4 percent to nearly 4.87 million, with incoming Japanese tourists down 0.3 percent to 776,942 compared to the same period a year ago.

STPB chief executive Tan Chin Nam said the August figures were a disappointment, but stressed that underlying trends in visitor traffic to Singapore remained positive.

Singapore's competitiveness has been affected by high costs, a labor shortage and the strong local dollar, which makes accommodation and shopping here more expensive than in emerging retail centers like Bangkok, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur.