Forget casinos, Singapore’s Indian tourists are cruising

SINGAPORE — When Indian architect Rahul Maini and his parents embarked on their first trip abroad in May, Singapore was their destination of choice.

But the trio wasn’t going for the hawker food or even the citystate’s casinos — they were there to get on a ship.

The equatorial island has become a flourishing entry point for Indian cruise- ship passengers, bolstering sales for operators, including Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. and Genting Hong Kong Ltd.

About 100,000 Indians sailed from Singapore last year, 29% more than in 2015, making India the biggest market for cruises departing from the Southeast Asian nation, according to the Singapore Tourism Board.

“We chose to go on a cruise because we could visit three countries in one short trip,” said Mr. Maini, 26, whose four-day cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Voyager of the Seas took in the Malaysian city of Penang and the Thai island of Phuket.

The family spent about $7,700, which Mr. Maini said was “expensive, but worth it.”

The expenditure is part of the 777.3 billion rupees ($12 billion) that Euromonitor International predicts middle- class Indians will shell out on overseas leisure travel this year. The market is expanding about 10% annually and will eclipse 1 trillion rupees by 2020, the research company says.

While the Middle East and France are the most- popular overseas destinations for Indians, Singapore is expected to register a 59% jump in arrivals from the world’s second most- populous country from 2015 to 2020, according to Euromonitor. Among the city- state’s top 10 inbound passenger markets, India is the fastest- growing, according to Changi Airport Group, which manages Singapore’s international airport.

The number of arrivals from India increased 15% in the first five months of this year, compared with a year earlier — outperforming China by three percentage points. Many of the tourists are like the Mainis, who come mainly to join a cruise.

“Fly-cruise tourism has really taken off among Indian tourists,” said Chayadi Karim, a research associate with Euromonitor.

To help, the Singapore government created the Cruise Development Fund, which supports travel agents and event organizers trying to get people to sail from Singapore, said Annie Chang, a director at the tourism board.

The number of Indian passengers on Royal Caribbean ships has jumped 149% so far from a year ago. This includes the peak summer school holiday period that runs in India from May to June, said Sean Treacy, the company’s Asia Pacific managing director. — Bloomberg