Corona Virus Impact, Number of Tourists to Singapore Will Drop 30 Percent

TRIBUNBATAM.id - Corona virus outbreak is predicted to make the number of tourist arrivals to Singapore drop between 25 to 30 percent.

The Singapore tourism authority also said, the country's tourism industry was faced with a worse impact than the SARS pandemic outbreak in 2003 ago.

Reporting from Bloomberg, Tuesday (02/11/2020), Singapore Tourism Board chief executive Keith Tan revealed, Singapore lost an estimated 18,000 to 20,000 foreign tourists per day. The situation could be worse if the corona virus hasn't subsided in the near future. 

"The main complaint I hear at the moment is" help "from the tourism industry as a whole," Tan said.

He said the condition was not surprising, because China made the biggest contribution in the number of tourist arrivals to Singapore.

China accounts for around 20 percent of tourist arrivals to Singapore, followed by Indonesia and India.

Prohibition of tourist arrivals in the group and a ban on entry for Chinese citizens applied by Singapore according to Tan can cause a drop in tourism revenue sources.

"We have around 1,600 Mandarin-speaking tour guides and their lives are also affected because most are freelancers," Tan said. 

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Tourists from other countries also canceled visits to Singapore and other countries as a result of the outbreak of the corona virus.

South Korea and Kuwait are some countries that advise their citizens to minimize or delay travel to Singapore and other countries in the region.

However, Singapore is not the only country affected by the corona virus.

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All over the world, casino hotels, airlines, and retailers that depend on Chinese tourists have also been hit.

Approximately 163 million Chinese tourists visit countries outside the Bamboo Curtain country in 2018. This figure accounts for more than 30 percent of spending on trips around the world. 

In 2019, Singapore received the highest record of tourist arrivals, at 19.1 million. Tourist spending in Singapore reached 19.5 billion US dollars.

Last week, DBS Group Holdings Ltd predicted a decline in tourist arrivals of 1 million for every three months when a travel ban was imposed.