Tag Archives: China

India ranked third among the top growth markets for international visitor arrivals in Singapore in terms of absolute growth in 2016, registering a growth of 8 per cent. While China (+36%) topped the growth markets, Indonesia (+6%) finished a close second. The growth was due to more visitor arrivals from Tier-I and Tier-II cities in China, India and Indonesia, where STB had intensified its marketing efforts. India also overtook Australia to become Singapore’s 4th largest source market for visitor arrivals. The largest declines in visitor arrivals were posted by Hong Kong (-12%), Malaysia (-2%), Australia (-2%), South Korea (-2%) and Japan (-1%). From January to September 2016, there was good growth in tourism receipts across Singapore’s top ten source markets. For the second consecutive year, China (+41%) ranked top in tourism receipts, followed by Indonesia (+14%) and India (+37%). Both visitor arrivals and tourism receipts exceeded forecasts to hit historical highs in 2016. While visitor arrivals grew by 7.7 per cent to 16.4 million, tourism receipts rose even higher by 13.9 per cent to $24.8 billion. The strong tourism receipt results came on the back of visitors spending more on Food and Beverage, Shopping and Accommodation. On the business tourism front, STB supported more than 410 business events held in 2016, a 15 per cent year-on-year growth. These events garnered around 343,000 visitor arrivals, and generated approximately $611 million in tourism receipts, a 20 per cent and 28 per cent increase year-on-year respectively.

India and China continued to register double-digit growth in domestic passenger demand in September 2016, according to International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) global passenger traffic report. The results showed that global demand, measured in revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs) grew 7 per cent compared to the same month in 2015. This was the strongest year-over-year increase in seven months. Capacity climbed 6.6 per cent and load factor edged up 0.3 percentage points to 81.1 per cent. Growth in domestic traffic slightly outpaced growth in international traffic. Domestic passenger demand climbed 7.2 per cent in September as compared to September2015, which was up from the 4.1 per cent year-on-year growth recorded in August. International RPKs climbed 6.9 per cent with airlines in all regions recording growth compared to 2015. Total capacity climbed 7.2 per cent, causing load factor to slide 0.2percentage points to 80.4 per cent. “September’s growth in passenger demand was healthy. Importantly, this rebound from August weakness suggests that travel demand is showing its resilience in the aftermath of terror attacks. We must, of course, be ever-alert to the ongoing terror threat. And overall the industry is still vulnerable to being buffeted by rising geopolitical tensions, protectionist political agendas, and weak economic fundamentals. This will still be a good year for the airline industry’s performance, but our profitability will continue to be hard-won,” said Alexandre de Juniac, Director General and Chief Executive Officer, IATA.

China’s Ctrip, the second largest online travel agency in the world after Priceline has set its eyes on the U.S. market with its acquisition of three U.S. based tour operators in a bid to boost business and improve service levels for Chinese outbound travellers vacationing in the U.S., said Tao Yang, a Ctrip senior vice president and head of its vacation business. The tour operators — Universal Vision, Ctour and Tours for Fun — stated they would also benefit from access to Ctrip’s customer base and technology. Ctrip took a majority stake in each of these tour operators for what the online travel agency describes as a marriage to form a Quartet focusing on Chinese travellers touring and visiting attractions in the U.S. But that partnership is distinct from Ctrip’s strategic plan to create a U.S. point of sale to sell travel globally, and this would put Ctrip in competition in the U.S. with partners such as the Priceline Group and Expedia, Yang said. He also said the relationships with Expedia and the Priceline Group would include elements of both partnership and competition, as is common in the travel industry.

The island of Ireland hosted the second annual Ireland Specialists Mega Fam trip from 21 August 21 to August 26, for 12 top-performing agents from six markets that included Australia, China, India, GCC, South Africa and New Zealand. From India Thomas Cook and Vacations Exotica participated in this fam. They travelled to Ireland and battle it out in daily challenges to be crowned the 2016 Emerald Ireland Specialist 2015. The challenges included photo challenges, food challenges and sporting challenges as well as a competitive, high-tech treasure hunt around Dublin City. As well as competing for the title, the agents experienced many of the key visitor attractions. Over 11,000 agents across the world have signed up for the programme since launching in 2013.

A total of 573,010 Indians visited Singapore in the first six months of 2016 recording a 10.1 per cent growth compared to the same period last year. India has now become the third largest source of international visitors to Singapore, having overtaken Malaysia. In total, international arrivals to Singapore jumped 12.5 per cent to 8.17 million in the first half of 2016. China is the country’s number one source market with 1.47m Chinese visitors while Indonesia ranks second largest market with 1.41 million visitors (growth of 7.3 per cent) Overall visitation from South Asia to Singapore climbed 9.0 per cent to 701,830 in the first half, including increased traffic from Sri Lanka (+3.3% to 45,801) and Bangladesh (+2.2% to 60,367).

Malaysia Airlines has revamped its Business Class seats on its A330 aircraft which flies to destinations in New Zealand, Japan, Korea, China, and India. The Business Class seat comes with a 43-inch seat pitch that converts into a fully flat 76-inch bed. It comes with 90 per cent more working space, extra stowage for personal items and the majority of seats have direct aisle access due to the 1-2-1 and 1-2-2 seat layout. Each seat is equipped with a 16-inch touch screen in-flight entertainment system. Paul Simmons, Chief Commercial Officer, Malaysia Airlines, said, “The introduction of the A330 Business Class seat will make us more competitive against other full-service carriers and is part of our push to make Malaysia Airlines the preferred carrier to, from and around Malaysia. This is the start of an exciting roll-out of new, innovative and personalised products and services that we can’t wait to share with our guests.” Business Class passengers can also take advantage of Malaysia Airlines’ award winning satay stick appetizers served with delicious peanut sauce in flight or the ‘Chef-on-Call’ dining service, providing advance meal selection from 25 options consisting of Malaysian specialities, chef specials and healthy choice dishes, with advance booking.