Jul 22, 2014 Newsdesk Latest News, Singapore, Top of the deck  
Singapore saw a 14 percent fall year-on-year in visitors from the People’s Republic of China – currently the city-state’s second biggest market for inbound tourists – in the first quarter according to Singapore Tourism Board data released on Monday.
By contrast mainland visitor numbers to Macau rose 17 percent in the first quarter.
The Singapore government doesn’t give a detailed breakdown of tourism receipts from the city-state’s two casino resorts, but it says that nevertheless during the quarter receipts from “sightseeing, entertainment and gaming” rose by 19 percent year-on-year. It contributed to an overall 5 percent year-on-year hike in tourism receipts for the three months to March 31, which reached SGD6 billion (US$4.8 billion).
‘International inbound tourism receipts’ are defined by the United Nations World Tourism Organization as “expenditure of international inbound visitors, including their payments to national carriers for international transport”.
That definition includes local taxes. In Singapore’s case, that’s not only a 7 percent Goods and Services Tax (GST) on retail sales such as hotel rooms and restaurant meals, but also 15 percent gaming tax on mass market play and 5 percent on VIP play – plus GST in both cases – on any gambling they do in the city’s two casinos.
The Singapore government’s rationale for introducing casinos to the city-state starting in 2010 was to increase annual tourism to 17 million arrivals, compared to the 10.1 million recorded in 2008. It also said at the time that it wanted to double annual receipts from tourism to SGD30 billion by 2015, compared to the SGD15.2 billion achieved in 2008.
In the first quarter of 2014, Singapore visitor numbers were precisely flat judged year-on-year, at 3.9 million. Mainland China accounted for 14 percent of the visitors in the three months, with 557,000 arrivals, and for 13 percent of all tourism receipts, generating SGD800 million.
Singapore Tourism Board attributed some of the fall in Chinese tourists in the first quarter to the mainland government’s imposition in October 2013 of new rules governing tour agents in China. The rules include a reported prohibition of so-called ‘zero fare’ tours, a restriction that analysts have said is likely to have an impact on the lowest-income outbound Chinese tourists. Middle class and well-heeled Chinese travellers tend to use other visa schemes allowing independent travel.
Coincidentally, in the first quarter of 2014, Union Gaming Research Macau Ltd noted that VIP rolling chip volume at Las Vegas Sands Corp’s Marina Bay Sands casino resort in Singapore was down 6 percent sequentially and down 29 percent year-on-year.
There was no indication that was linked to a decline in mainland tourists, who if they qualified as high rollers would in any case need to have their credit to play managed directly by the house at Marina Bay Sands.
In the same quarter Genting Singapore Plc, owner of the Resorts World Sentosa casino resort, reported a 29 percent increase year-on-year in gaming revenue. Genting Singapore does not give a breakdown between mass-market and VIP revenue, but does – unlike Las Vegas Sands – work with the International Market Agents licensed by Singapore’s Casino Regulatory Authority to provide credit to gamblers in the city.
Visitor numbers from Taiwan to Singapore were down 8 percent from a year earlier in the three months to March 30, while the figures from neighbouring Malaysia, Singapore’s third-biggest market, slipped 1 percent. But visitors from next-door Indonesia, Singapore’s largest market measured by people and second largest measured by tourism receipts, were up 6 percent year-on-year.
Jun 02, 2023
May 31, 2023
Jun 08, 2023
Jun 08, 2023
Jun 08, 2023
Macau recorded 158 “gaming-related” crimes in the first three months of 2023, up 24.4 percent on the 127 identified in the prior-year period, according to the latest statistics published on...Jun 08, 2023
Gaming content and equipment maker Konami says it is...Jun 07, 2023
Casino gaming content and hardware provider Light &...Jun 06, 2023
Electronic table games (ETGs) supplier Interblock dd is...Jun 05, 2023
Random number generator (RNG) testing tools are among the...Jun 01, 2023
Alfastreet, a manufacturer of electronic gaming machines,...Jun 01, 2023
Casino equipment maker Sega Sammy Creation Inc is tweaking...Jun 01, 2023
The iGaming segment in Asia “has grown rapidly” since...May 31, 2023
Showing slot machine players – via animations on the...May 31, 2023
Macau stocks in likelihood “have been punished too much...May 31, 2023
There are foreign companies still interested in investing...May 31, 2023
Thailand could pass the necessary enabling legislation for...May 30, 2023
China will remain a key market for Asian gaming...May 30, 2023
Alejandro Tengco (pictured in a file photo), chairman and...May 30, 2023
There are “plenty of reasons” for the global gaming...May 30, 2023
Gaming equipment provider International Game Technology Plc...May 30, 2023
The Global Gaming Expo (G2E) Asia 2023 Special Edition:...May 29, 2023
Austria-based gaming equipment maker and operator Novomatic...May 25, 2023
Sports betting and online casino operating platform...May 24, 2023
The business performance in Asia of gaming content and...May 18, 2023
The organisers of Global Gaming Expo (G2E) Asia 2023...May 17, 2023
Gaming content and equipment supplier Light & Wonder...May 16, 2023
Casino equipment maker Sega Sammy Creation Inc is to...May 09, 2023
Casino slot machine and digital gaming content provider...May 05, 2023
The Global Gaming Expo (G2E) Asia event in Singapore is the...May 04, 2023
An adviser to a Thailand parliamentary committee mulling...(Click here for more)
”I think the gaming sector has a huge potential in coming years. The situation around the pandemic drew a lot of attention from the casino operators to the ETG segment”
Michael Hu
President for the Asia-Pacific region at gaming supplier Interblock