Singapore: February visitor arrivals surge as casino opens

Hotel occupancy rose 4.9 percentage points from a year ago to 79.7 %, though average room rates in February fell 1.5 % from a year earlier to us$ 143, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) said on Friday. The number of "visitor days" - the overall visitor arrivals times an average length of stay for each visitor - grew 16.3 % in February from a year earlier to 3.3 million days.

The us$ 4.7 billion Resort World on Sentosa, owned by Malaysia's Genting Group, opened its doors to visitors in February, and will be followed in April by a partial opening for the us$ 5.5 billion Las Vegas Sands owned Marina Bay Sands casino resort.

Visitor arrivals to Singapore may rise by as much as 30 percent this year, helped by an economic recovery in Asia and by the two casinos, STB said this month. Each casino is expected to contribute a value add of us$ 1.92 billion, or 0.5 to 1 %, to Singapore's gross domestic product (GDP) by 2015, STB estimates.

Singapore is trying to diversify into services industries such as tourism to reduce dependence on manufacturing, but it suffered a fall in tourism as well as exports in 2009 during the financial crisis. The number of visitors to Singapore fell by 4.3 % last year to 9.7 million, driving revenue from the sector down 19 % to us$ 8.8 billion.