Mainlanders revel in visa-free holiday travel to Singapore
City state is now more accessible but early signs suggest Chinese are eschewing luxury shopping
Singapore’s glitzy Marina Bay Sands resort was packed with tourists throughout the Lunar New Year holiday week, one of the biggest times for travel in China.
The upmarket shopping centre and casino was abuzz with holidaymakers making the most of the eight-day break and a new mutual visa waiver agreement with Beijing, which took effect on February 9, the eve of the annual break.
Under the deal, travellers can now enjoy visa-free stays in either country for up to 30 days, extending the amount of time Singaporeans can spend on the mainland and removing a previous entry visa requirement for mainland Chinese visitors to Singapore.
The Southeast Asian city state, long popular with Chinese tourists, is hoping the agreement can give a further boost to its economy. Early indicators suggest the visa waiver may already be yielding results but the lack of obvious activity at luxury boutiques point to a shift in spending among tourists.
Angel, from Yunnan province, and her family were among the visitors who made the trip. “We like Singapore because it’s nearby and convenient, and it’s easier now that we don’t need a visa,” Angel said, waiting to pose for photos with three Chinese dragon decorations hovering over the resort’s entrance.
The family has already been to Singapore several times, and intends to keep coming back. “We’ve already been to other nearby countries, but we’ll keep coming back here because it’s not as expensive as Europe,” she added.
Travellers also seemed more cost conscious at ION Orchard, an upmarket mall along the city’s main shopping belt. While short queues formed at a handful of luxury boutiques, most customers emerged empty-handed. By contrast, mid-market stores were packed, as was the high-end teahouse chain TWG.
“About 70 per cent of our footfall over the last two weeks has been from mainland Chinese,” said Adrian, a store assistant at a luxury boutique. He declined to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media.
“But in my opinion, they’re not buying as much as they used to pre-Covid,” he added, saying this might be because of the struggling Chinese economy and the stronger Singapore dollar. Singapore last year logged 1.36 million visitor arrivals from China, its biggest source of tourists before the pandemic, according to data from the Singapore Tourism Board – a far cry from the 3.63 million visitors it drew in 2019.
But compared to far-flung locations such as Paris or Rome, Singapore is an accessible alternative. It took the top spot in a 2023 survey of Chinese nationals’ most desired holiday destinations by marketing company China Trading Desk, beating out Europe, South Korea, and Thailand.
Bookings to Singapore for the Lunar New Year festive period by Chinese travellers soared 206 times compared with the same window last year, according to Edmund Ong, general manager of Trip.com Singapore. Close to half of those bookings came from families, he added, with the Singapore Zoo, the Universal Studios Singapore theme park, and city tours being among the most popular attractions.
A director at a travel agency said her bookings from China had increased over the festive season, although by less than she had hoped for.
“Group sizes have shrunk and a lot of ‘free and easy’ individual travellers prefer a DIY approach instead of engaging a travel agent,” said Jasmine Li, director of business development at Hong Thai Travel.
Bookings from China now make up about 30 per cent of her inbound business, compared with 35 per cent pre-pandemic.
Chinese tourists have also been spotted at unexpected locations, such as the city’s universities. Two of these have had a surge in complaints about tourist groups descending on the campuses for tours and disrupting classes, with one of the institutions saying it plans to introduce a visitor fee.
Singapore will also face stiffer competition next month, when a similar visa-free arrangement between China and Thailand takes effect. Mutual visa-free entry also applies between China and Malaysia, and Indonesia announced in December that it, too, is considering such a scheme.
“We wanted to come to Singapore even before the visa waiver was announced, because it’s convenient and very clean, so it did not make much difference,” said first-time visitor Dana, who was visiting from the eastern province of Zhejiang with her husband and two young sons for a weeklong holiday.