TravTalk India Online Magazine
While families, M&I and weddings will remain traditional strongholds for Singapore Tourism Board, it is actively trying to woo the young Indian traveller through various initiatives.
Hazel Jain
Singapore Tourism Board has revealed that tourist arrivals from India until June 2023 was 5.35 lakh, which is close to 72 per cent of the 2019 numbers. It’s a good record to have, says GB Srithar, Regional Director – India, Middle East, South Asia & Africa, Singapore Tourism Board (STB). “We are on track, and we hope to finish the year with a stronger recovery. Visitor arrivals from India has been strong, not just from key metros like Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, and Chennai, but across from secondary cities. The latest flight from Bhubaneswar takes the total to 17 direct connections from India into Singapore! We are back to full capacity of 2019,” he reveals.
New (age) traveller segment
Singapore is now actively pursuing the young Indian traveller. Srithar says, “While we want to continue capturing families, and, of course, cruise travellers, along with M&I, which are our traditional strongholds, we are also trying to tap into the young Indian audiences. Almost 67 per cent of Indians today are under the age of 35 years, which makes it a huge segment. To them, we are presenting Singapore as a fun, hip destination with worldclass events. We have been doing a few interesting activities towards this. One of them is a taste obsession series with Theobroma to bring the taste of Singapore to India. Through this, Theobroma outlets will have Singapore-inspired food products.” Another interesting activity that is coming up is an interactive OTT web series, which will make STB among the first NTO to do so. In this, the viewer will be able to choose in which direction the story plot goes. This will be launched by August end. “Earlier in the year, we also did a web series with Tripoto called ‘On My Own’ that featured a solo woman traveller to Singapore. All of these are our efforts to woo the young Indian traveller,” Srithar reiterates. After a long hiatus, STB is also engaging tier cities like Jaipur, Pune and Coimbatore, along with 40 Singapore stakeholders.
