How to sell Singapore to Chinese

Edmund Chua

In June, we launched a campaign that promotes Singapore as a monodestination  and to counter the challenge that we are more expensive than our competitors.

 

Travel Weekly Asia spoke to Edmund Chua, General Manager of Lex Travel, an inbound travel agency in Singapore that specializes in the China market for his views. Here is the exclusive interview. 

TWA: How do you sell Singapore, i.e. what attractions or events?

Edmund: A carefree holiday with good value proposition (not the cheapest).

 TWA: Are there more Chinese Travellers going FIT and do the majority still go in groups?

Edmund: Typically, 1^st-time visitors from a specific city / region would travel by group. Repeat visitorships would happen with the cities’ growing propensity and increasing wealth resulting in more experienced travellers who would choose FIT to places like Singapore which is easy to enjoy.

Since the start of mass outbound travel in 1^st-tiered and 2^nd-tiered cities we do see more FITs from these cities as their residents become more experienced travellers.PROVIDED, we the travel industry in Singapore still work well to stay RELEVANT with the expectations of Chinese visitors.

TWA: What do they spend on? 

Edmund: Typically, they feel ‘shiok’ to spend on ‘expenditures’ (ie, they will spend according to their feel) whilst more budget conscious to spend on ‘costs’ (ie, they tend to hunt for good bargains).

Affordability is relative to their wealth level and thus there are still Chinese visitors choosing luxury accommodation.

TWA: Singapore has been a short stay destination, has that changed over the last 3 years?

Edmund: Due to increasing ‘travel costs’ (see above) with higher hotel rates and general cost of living, it has been and could get worse if we as members of the travel industry do not intervene proactively.

In June, we launched a campaign that promotes Singapore as a monodestination  and to counter the challenge that we are more expensive than our competitors.