Singapore — the neighbour of Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines, whose Chinese visitors have sharply decreased due to the anti-China violence and disturbances — is beefing up its local tourism promotion amid China’s ever-expanding outbound tourism industry.
“Singapore has been seeing increasing Chinese visitors in the past few years, and we aim at attracting more tourists, because fewer are heading to other traditional East Asian destinations,” said Derek Tay Hock Guan, managing director of Lex Travel Pte Ltd, a travel agency in Singapore.
Singapore, with its Chinese-friendly atmosphere, including the Chinese-speaking citizens, familiar food and road signs in Chinese everywhere, is thought to attract more visitors.