BEIJING – The Chinese used to be Singapore’s top source of tourists before the pandemic, but even with China’s reopening in January, visitors have not returned in droves.
For the first five months of this year, arrivals from the world’s second-largest economy climbed to just 20 per cent of pre-Covid-19 levels, and were overtaken by visitors from Indonesia, India and Australia.
In February, China resumed group tours to Singapore and other countries, after cancelling them for three years in its fight against Covid-19. However, overall growth in outbound tourism from China has remained tepid, compared with domestic tourism, as international flights have been slow to resume.
A total of 3.63 million Chinese tourists went to Singapore in 2019. The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) is targeting between 30 per cent and 60 per cent of this number for 2023.
In 2019, Singapore received…
