SINGAPORE, 18 September 2020: Visa has signed a three- year Memorandum of Understanding with the Singapore Tourism Board to support tourism and lifestyle small and medium-sized enterprises impacted by Covid-19.
Both organisations will scale up their partnership to include joint international marketing, powered by data and insights derived from their joint research.
The aim is to develop marketing strategies and initiatives to help Singapore businesses capture demand once global travel resumes.
STB and Visa will combine proprietary data, as well as research and analytical capabilities, to derive insights on how Covid-19 has changed domestic and international consumer behaviour.
These insights will help identify new trends and untapped opportunities, which will be shared with local SMEs to develop their own data-driven campaigns and initiatives that are in tune with the new environment.
To kickstart the data and research collaboration, STB and Visa have produced a report to provide insights for local SMEs. Called Impact of Covid-19 on Tourism in Singapore and the Road to Recovery and Transformation, the report found that local brands are worst hit by the pandemic.
In the next phase of their data and research collaboration, STB and Visa will focus on the impact of Covid-19 on business travel.
Singapore is one of the world’s leading business travel destinations, and business visitors represent the country’s highest-yielding segment. An in-depth study to identify changing behaviours, new trends and growth opportunities will sharpen Singapore’s competitive edge as a global business destination. Insights from the study will also guide future campaigns to capture inbound business tourism spend and help local SMEs recover.
STB and Visa will also develop a domestic marketing campaign to raise awareness of local SMEs, while driving domestic consumption through Visa cardholder promotions.
“Local tourism and lifestyle businesses contribute significantly to the vibrancy of a city like Singapore. STB and Visa both want to help such businesses to survive and succeed in the new environment. We recognise that many of them, especially the smaller and medium-sized ones, are especially vulnerable. We hope to help them develop new digital capabilities and transform their businesses. Through our partnership with Visa, we also aim to give local businesses a much- needed boost through domestic spending,” said STB Chief Executive Keith Tan.
