SINGAPORE, 13 February 2020; Southeast Asian nations are bracing themselves for hefty declines in tourism earnings as the Covid-19 virus sends holiday bookings into a free fall.
Tourism officials in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand are estimating tourist arrivals in the first six months of the year could drop by 30%.
In all three countries, the losses in the lucrative events sector are substantial with recovery based on best-case scenarios not kicking in for four to five months.
Based on the current situation, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) in an update earlier this week said it “expects visitor arrivals this year to fall by about 25 to 30%.
Malaysia says it remains confident the Visit Malaysia Year campaign will keep tourism on track to reach its target of 30 million but as the Covid-19 virus continues to spread those hopes are likely to be dashed if the epidemic continues unabated into the second half of the year. Losses are high in the hotel sector estimated to exceed MYR40 million so far this year. Around 95,000 room nights have been cancelled
The public health emergency has already impacted on Singapore’s visitor arrivals, from China, which accounts for around 20% and STB in its latest update warns that other key source markets are also expected to fall due to lower travel confidence globally.
Chief Executive of Singapore Tourism Board Keith Tan said in the media statement: “Singapore’s tourism sector is facing its biggest challenge since SARS in 2003. But unlike SARS, we are now better prepared and more resilient. Our destination remains attractive, we have a strong pipeline of tourism products, and our market portfolio is diverse.”
Both Thailand and Malaysia have released details of incentives and recovery campaigns to ease the pain for the hospitality and travel industries. Malaysia is considering tax rebates and possibly a moratorium on loans for travel companies.
All three countries rely heavily on China for leisure, conference and incentive travel bookings. Malaysia welcomed around 3.48 million Chinese last year and Thailand a whopping 11 million. Singapore recorded about 3.6 million visits from China.
Thailand’s agency promoting events tourism, the Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau, has a war chest of THB200 million to spend on giving companies subsidies if they organise events in the country over the next few months.
The Thailand Chamber of Commerce is backing the campaign that encourages corporations to organise incentives in the provinces for at least 40 delegates. Tourism leaders are hoping the scheme will help to offset the drop in event travel from China that supplies an estimated 20% of all international events hosted in Thailand.
Meanwhile, Singapore is rolling out a Tourism Recovery Action Task Force, to map out recovery strategies and plans.
The task force will comprise of tourism leaders from the private and public sectors, to leverage the strengths of both sectors and to coordinate recovery efforts.
To provide support for affected tourism businesses, STB has unveiled measures to waive license fees for hotels, travel agents and tourist guides, and to defray cleaning costs for hotels with suspected and confirmed cases of Covid-19. More measures will be announced following the national Budget statement 18 February.
