Singapore secures partners to enhance the tourist"s experience

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Liew: ‘We are always looking into ways to enhance our offerings.’

CAN Singapore be perceived as an extension of the Malaysian lifestyle? That’s what the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) hopes to achieve.

With its flashy ultra-modern city, the island republic has tourism as one of its economic backbones. And given its proximity to Malaysia, it should come as no surprise that Malaysian tourist arrivals rank third after China and Indonesia.

STB recently launched its new marketing campaign specifically for Malaysian tourists Only in Singapore, right now to enhance tourists’ experience and make Singapore as part of their lifestyle.

The campaign is part of the YourSingapore branding, which is a transition from Uniquely Singapore.

YourSingapore, introduced by STB in 2012, is a way for STB to become more personal with the visitors to Singapore, to help visitors to tap upon Singapore’s concentration of dining, shopping, natural and cultural attractions.

StarBizWeek recently met STB area director Liew Chian Jia, who is responsible for the Malaysian tourist segment, in Kuala Lumpur to share more details about the campaign’s approaches.

Liew says STB has secured a number of key partners to support the campaign including AirAsia, MasterCard, ShowBiz Asia, Singapore Airlines, SilkAir, BASE Entertainment Asia and Expedia.com, which provides online bookings for tourists.

“We are partnering with Expedia.com to offer an exclusive 10% discount for hotel bookings through the website,” she adds.

She notes that the partnerships aim to bring forth all the line-up attractions, entertainment, retail, dining and travel arrangements to create memorable experiences.

“Our partnership with MasterCard and Showbiz, for example, aims to make the experience of a night out in Singapore more meaningful by combining world-class entertainment with world-class dining and exclusive access to priceless experiences that are not offered by normal tickets.

“These experiences would stretch the imagination of visitors beyond what they expect while visiting Singapore,” she explains.

MasterCard launched the Priceless Singapore programme in October 2012, which makes Singapore the first country in South-East Asia to join the ranks of the Priceless Cities alongside New York, London and Beijing.

Liew says that through the MasterCard Priceless partnership, Malaysians will enjoy an exciting suite of unique and novel experiences like living in the lap of luxury ranging from invitations in hotel suites connecting Malaysians with their passion for shopping, travel, food and entertainment, to exceptional experiences across the city.

There are numerous ways for Malaysian tourists to get to Singapore, with plenty of daily flights provided by various airline companies.

When ask on its collaboration with AirAsia on the advertising campaign to promote special deals to Singapore, Liew says that through the partnership, AirAsia is providing 27,000 free tickets to fly from Malaysia to Singapore. AirAsia is well known for its affordable fares. The tickets can be redeemed only via www.yoursingapore.com/live.

Liew is open to securing more partnership and welcomes partners that could assist the STB goal, which is to enhance the visitors’ experience in the country.

“We are always looking into ways to enhance our offerings and create bespoke experiences for Malaysians, and partnership is an activity that we would continue to explore,” she says.

On the development in Iskandar Malaysia and of several new attractions in Johor such as Legoland and Johor Premium Outlets, located a short drive from Singapore, Liew says this is likely to attract more tourists to the region, which in turn would benefit Singapore.

“From a regional perspective, all tourism developments in this region play an important role in making the region more appealing for visitors.

“We see this as a potential to unlock a broader market by attracting more tourists to the region as a whole,” she explains.

But what does Singapore have to offer? Plenty!

Liew says Malaysian tourists have grown affluent; thus through the campaign, tourists can now explore more in-depth on what is happening in Singapore.

She notes that the information provided on the website is very in-depth that even Singaporeans may not know about some of them.

Through its new campaign, STB is engaging visitors from Malaysia to offer them the convenience on everything new, including attractions; entertainment, retail, and dining experiences; as well as travel arrangements.

At the heart of the campaign is “YourSingapore Live”, an online platform offering its own unique way to share information, tailored based Malaysian tourists’ taste buds, on new and upcoming events in Singapore. The website is updated daily and the event line-up covers entertainment, shopping, attractions, arts and culture, and dining experiences.

The website is not only a one-stop shop for visitors to find information on all new offerings in Singapore. It also allows users to have easy access to flights and tickets booking.

She says the website features new things that will happen in Singapore over the next 60 days for visitors to plan their trips as well color-coding systems to distinguish the offering categories attractions, dining, culture/arts, entertainment, shopping and others.

“This year we have new attractions and events for tourists to experience that include the Marine Life Park, River Safari, Sesame Street Spaghetti Space Ride (Universal Studios), several concerts, and Savour 2013,” she notes.

“The River Safari will be Asia’s very first and only river-themed wildlife park and it is the newest addition to our Wildlife Reserves Singapore portfolio,” she adds.

Liew says the campaign is also supported through an integrated set of publication elements, including social media such as Facebook, Twitter, online advertisements and smart phone application.

Singapore received 589,000 visitors from Malaysia in the first half of last year and 1.14 million in 2011, she says. Almost 90% of Malaysian tourists are repeat visitors and out of that, 33% have visited Singapore more than three times within a year.

Singapore secures partners to enhance the tourist"s experience