SINGAPORE, 28 October 2022: Minister of State for Trade and Industry and Culture, Community and Youth Alvin Tan launched the Hotel Industry Transformation Map (ITM) 2025 earlier this week at the opening ceremony of the international tradeshow FHA-HoReCa (Food & Hotel Asia-Hotel, Restaurant, Café) at Singapore Expo.
The Hotel ITM 2025 was developed by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) in partnership with the Food Drinks and Allied Workers Union (FDAWU), Singapore Hotel Association (SHA), industry players and other government agencies. It was endorsed by the Future Economy Council (FEC)1 earlier this year.
The Hotel ITM 2025 roadmap lays out strategies to achieve real value-added growth of 5.9% from 2020 to 2025 and create good jobs in emerging areas such as wellness, sustainability, and technology.
Since the launch of the first Hotel ITM in 2016, the hotel industry has posted strong growth. It recorded a high average occupancy of 87% and a workforce of close to 35,000 in 2019.
A key strategy of the Hotel ITM 2025 builds on the success of the first ITM while capturing demand with fresh hotel concepts.
During the pandemic, many hotels used the downtime to launch compelling and differentiated concepts, such as Oasia Resort Sentosa, Far East Hospitality’s first foray into the resort and spa category, which was launched in September 2021. The emphasis on anchoring novel and attractive hotel concepts will continue with several distinctive hotels opening shortly, including renowned design hotel brand The Singapore EDITION, eco-resort Banyan Tree Mandai, Artyzen Singapore, and Singapore’s first villa-only hotel Raffles Sentosa Resort & Spa Singapore.
STB will also continue to work with Enterprise Singapore (Enterprise SG) to help local hotel chains expand internationally and with the Economic Development Board (EDB) to encourage more global hotel brands to set up regional headquarters in Singapore.
Under Hotel ITM 2025, STB aims to increase the adoption of proven and impactful technology solutions such as STB’s E-Visitor Authentication (EVA)3 system* – which uses facial recognition technology to match passport images to that of guests. When integrated with a hotel’s self-check-in solution, EVA creates a fully contactless check-in experience. Currently, close to 50 hotels use EVA. To encourage greater adoption, STB recently launched the EVA-Ready Programme to match hotels with technology partners with proven solutions that can be integrated with the EVA system.
“A strong and growing tourism sector needs a vibrant hotel industry. Singapore’s hotels are amongst the best in the world, but they can continue to transform and grow so that Singapore’s tourism sector can capture the next phase of growth. The Hotel ITM 2025 charts a clear vision, and we look forward to working closely with our industry partners on this journey,” said Singapore Tourism Board chief executive Keith Tan.
For the full STB report, check out: https://www.stb.gov.sg/content/stb/en/media-centre/media-releases/Hotel-Industry-Transformation-Map-2025.html.
* E-Visitor Authentication (EVA) software automates checking guests’ stay validity in Singapore as required by the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA). EVA is integrated with hotels’ facial recognition-enabled self-check-in solutions to send guest data to ICA to verify the validity of guest stays.
