Xinmin Evening News (Reporter Yang Yuhong) According to the "Lianhe Zaobao" report, on December 7, Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Lawrence Wong revealed at the meeting of the China-Singapore Joint Committee on Bilateral Cooperation (JCBC) that on the basis of the increasing number of flights between Singapore and China, the two sides will strengthen personnel exchanges between the two countries through a 30-day mutual visa exemption arrangement.
The mutual visa exemption policy between China and New Zealand will have a positive impact on the tourism industry. As of 13:00 on December 7, Singapore's search volume on Ctrip's platform increased by 80% month-on-month one hour before the announcement, the search volume for air tickets increased by 90%, and the search volume for hotels increased by 50%.The search index on Qunar has quadrupled from last week.
Singapore is a popular destination for Chinese outbound tourism and an important source of inbound tourists. According to the data, from January to September 2023, the number of Chinese tourists entering Singapore reached 1 million, recovering to 35% of the level of the same period in 2019, and also returning to the second place in the list of inbound tourists in Singapore. On July 26 this year, China announced the resumption of the unilateral visa-free entry policy for Singapore, and Singaporean citizens holding ordinary passports who come to China for business, tourism, visiting relatives and friends and transiting can stay in China without a visa for 15 days.
At present, Ctrip has launched a special activity for outbound travel during the Spring Festival, and launched a number of travel routes including Singapore, with a minimum of 2,744 yuan for Singapore + Malaysia 6-day group from Beijing recently. In October this year, Ctrip also signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Singapore Tourism Board to jointly launch a global market cooperation upgrade plan to promote tourism exchanges and cooperation between China and Singapore. The two parties will cooperate in China around Singapore's hot festivals, arts and culture, and further implement TRIPcom overseas multiple sites in cooperation with the Singapore Tourism Board.
Tongcheng Travel data shows that as of 14 o'clock today, Singapore's tourism attention is 18% higher than that of the same period the day before**18%, of which Guangdong, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Shandong, Zhejiang and other provinces and cities have the most users who pay attention to Singapore-related tourism information. At present, many cities in China have opened direct flights to Singapore, and Singapore's language environment is also relatively friendly to Chinese tourists, and in 2023, Singapore will rank among the top five popular outbound travel destinations for Chinese tourists.
On the Qunar platform, in December, the Beijing-Singapore direct flight ticket ** 1200 yuan, Shanghai-Singapore 950 yuan, Hangzhou-Singapore 790 yuan, Guangzhou-Singapore 860 yuan, Xiamen-Singapore 1110 yuan, and the search volume of Universal Studios Singapore tickets increased by 40% month-on-month. Xiao Peng, a researcher at Qunar Big Data Research Institute, analyzed that tourists will be more cost-effective for a single outbound trip, and 5-6 day tours between Singapore and Malaysia are expected to become popular destinations for outbound travel during the Spring Festival.
It is also reported that in addition to Singapore, since the beginning of this year, Georgia, Thailand, Tunisia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and other countries have also announced visa-free access for Chinese tourists.