Singapore visitor arrivals fall month on month to 57,140 in January; hotel takings down

• Feb 25, 2022

SINGAPORE’S international visitor numbers tumbled in January on the month before, as border restrictions were tightened amid the global spread of the Omicron variant.

Meanwhile, hotel revenue fell by 23.1 per cent month on month to S$101.2 million, from S$131.6 million previously – though industry takings were still up by 43.9 per cent year on year.

The Republic welcomed 57,140 arrivals in January, down by 38.4 per cent from 92,790 in the month prior, according to the latest Singapore Tourism Board (STB) figures.

The visitor numbers are a jump from 23,370 in the year before, but still far below the 1.69 million recorded in January 2020, before the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted international travel.

Most of January’s travellers hailed from nearby countries with Vaccinated Travel Lanes (VTLs) for quarantine-free entry – notably India (11,430), Indonesia (5,860) and Malaysia (5,200).

Still, the number of arrivals from these markets was roughly halved from the month before, as Singapore suspended VTL ticket sales from Dec 23, 2021 to Jan 20, 2022.

Hotel occupancies fell to 57.8 per cent in January, from 72.1 per cent the month before, while revenue per available room slipped to S$96.37, from S$162.61 previously. The average room rate stood at S$166.79, down from S$225.57 in the month prior.

Alan Cheong, executive director of research and consultancy at Savills, fingered “the lagging performance of the mid-tier and economy class hotels” for the retreat in rates.

“The luxury segment may have better pricing power because staycations have largely been concentrated in this grade of hotels,” he remarked. “Given the relative inelasticity of this group of local guests, the luxury hotel should continue to perform relatively better than the rest.”

But “it is quite clear that the visitor arrivals have begun trending up and it is not going to be easy to reverse that, short of the emergence of even more deadly strains”, Cheong commented.

The STB defines international visitors as people who spend less than a year in Singapore. It excludes returning residents and pass holders, Malaysians arriving by land, non-resident air and sea crew, and air transit passengers.

Source: https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/government-economy/singapore-visitor-arrivals-fall-month-on-month-to-57140-in-january-hotel-takings