February 10, 2023, Delhi-NCR: The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) rolled out ambitious plans to make the city-state an even more desirable destination for Indian visitors in 2023 at South Asia’s leading travel trade event, SATTE, in Noida today, as it aims to build on last year’s post-pandemic travel rebound.
This comes in along with the announcement by the Indian government of removing all RTPCR requirements, in addition to all covid restrictions being lifted, for Indian travellers returning from Singapore with effect from 13th February 2023, 11 am. This shall further facilitate fuss-free travel for Indian visitors to Singapore.
Travel from India to Singapore has picked up pace since April 2022 with the greater easing of travel restrictions. India accounted for 686,000 of the overall 6.3 million global visitor arrivals in 2022, emerging as Singapore’s second-largest source market after Indonesia (1.1 million visitors). With direct flight connectivity between Singapore and 17 Indian cities, Singapore is poised to tap into the burgeoning travel demand from across the country.
Built around the theme ‘Ramping up Pathways to Recovery, Together!’, the STB’s vision for 2023 and the coming years includes a focus on positioning Singapore as a destination that offers rewarding travel experience to Indian travellers by broadening its appeal, both to a wider Indian demographic which includes young Indian travellers, and as an aspirational destination to celebrate life milestones such as weddings and anniversaries. STB will also sharpen its offerings in its family segment, Meetings and Incentive travel, and cruise tourism strongholds.
GB Srithar, Regional Director, India, Middle East, South Asia and Africa, said, “A total of 48 Singapore travel industry partners are exhibiting at the Singapore Pavilion at SATTE 2023, making this Singapore’s biggest ever presence at SATTE. India has long been one of Singapore’s largest tourism source markets and is only set to become even more important in 2023, bolstered by a strong recovery in 2022 of close to 50% of the visitor arrivals achieved in 2019. The year ahead in Singapore is exciting, with hotly-anticipated tourism developments and we invite many more Indians with different passion points, travel desires, and aspirations to enjoy our diverse, vibrant, and reimagined offerings.”
The Singapore Pavilion showcases new attractions, initiatives and focus areas STB is working on. Upcoming tourism developments that will be launched in 2023 include Sentosa’s multi-concept family development and Sensoryscape experiential park, as well as Mandai Wildlife Reserve’s Bird Paradise. These developments are expected to further anchor Singapore’s destination attractiveness to travellers from all across India.
Alongside SATTE 2023, STB has lined up a series of trade outreach activities across India, which includes a B2B networking platform in Chennai on 13 February, and two wedding networking engagements with 35 top wedding planners in partnership with WeddingSutra on 7 and 8 February in Mumbai and Delhi respectively.
Singapore, over the last few decades, has established itself as a global business and leisure hub. It offers visitors a mix of eclectic experiences. Visitors can take in live sports, arts, entertainment, or a wildlife safari, indulge themselves in delectable cuisines that are reflective of Singapore’s cultural diversity or engage in thrill-seeking adventure exploits. Singapore is increasingly also emerging as a wellness destination, with a whole host of emotional and physical well-being experiences on offer. At the same time, it takes the lead in pioneering sustainable tourism, with its ‘City in Nature’ vision a key pillar of the Singapore Green Plan 2030.
However, a few key points that travellers must take into account :
All inbound travellers to the city must be fully vaccinated based on WHO’s guidelines, otherwise, they must submit a negative pre-departure test. We maintain vigilance, constantly monitoring the Covid situation.
The 16 currently-connected cities are Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Coimbatore, Madurai, Tiruchirappalli, Kolkata, Guwahati, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Kochi, Pune, Trivandrum, Vishakhapatnam and Thiruvananthapuram. In addition, there was recent announcement of direct flight from Bhubaneswar by Air Indigo.
