New fund to 'kickstart' Singapore tourism growth

Mindful of growing competition in Asian tourism markets, the Singapore Government is looking to support lifestyle concepts with strong tourism potential through its new 'Kickstart Fund'.

Intended to foster innovation and the testing of new small-scale ideas for tourism, the $5 million, to be administered by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), seeks to back new high value attractions and events.

Introducing the Fund, Singapore Second Minister for Trade and Industry S Iswaran said that visitor arrivals cannot continue to grow indefinitely and sustainably at the rates that have been seen in recent years.

As a result, the next phase of growth for the tourism industry will need to come from increasing the yield through visitor spend rather than just attracting more people to travel to Singapore.

Minister Iswaran explained "what we need now is strong content, especially in business and leisure events.

"Such 'software' is hard to replicate and will differentiate Singapore from our competitors, who might be catching up in terms of hardware, infrastructure and volume."

Minister Iswaran cited the example of the inaugural Art Week in January, which included high-profile art fairs, and which generated high footfall, strong sales and good international media coverage.

Image shows the Singapore F1 Night Race.