KUALA LUMPUR: Southeast Asia has the potential to grow its cruise industry and attract international travellers from this segment who would be drawn to the many historical and cultural sites in the region.
The region offers a mix of city life, wildlife and nature, and is also known for the islands.
Singapore Tourism Board (STB) Southeast Asia executive director Terrence Voon said Southeast Asia is also home to many UNESCO world heritage sites that could attract tourists.
Coupled with a warm weather all year-round, Voon said the opportunities for the region to become a favoured cruise spot is abundant.
"One of the key things we hope to push is for Southeast Asia to be the Caribbean of the East for cruise. We do have cruises like Disney Cruise Line and the Royal Caribbean Cruises so can you imagine if we open up more cruise spots that have access to all the Unesco sites. It will definitely help draw both flight and cruise travellers," he told the Business Times in a recent interview.
Voon said long haul travellers from the West would be interested in the idea of going for a cruise holiday and being able to experience the diverse culture in Southeast Asia.
"It's a huge draw and it is something we hope to be able to do more at Asean level, to promote the region as a cruising destination. "There is also a growing trend of luxury cruises coming as well and that could be a potential growth area for this region," said Voon.
He was speaking afterSTB, Gardens by the Bay and Mandai Wildlife Group's collaboration with AirAsia to launch the 'Love, Singapore' aircraft livery as part of a joint campaign to promote inbound travel to Singapore from Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.
Voon said the number of Malaysian travellers to the city-state has recovered after the pandemic and is deemed as a "resilient market" for the board.
Last year, Singapore drew in 1.08 million visitors from Malaysia.
In comparison, Singapore saw about 1.2 million visitors from Malaysia pre-Covid.
"This year for the first seven months we had 682,000 visitors already. The key takeaway is that Malaysia is among our top performing markets in terms of covid-19 recovery to pre-pandemic levels. "Not just in volume, in terms of spending as well they are spending more in Singapore. A lot of that has got to do with the fact we refresh quite a lot of our attractions and experiences and also push out new ones such as concerts and live entertainments," he said.
Voon said STB is constantly looking at ways to ensure Malaysians come back to visit, among which include promoting events that are catered for families. "Malaysians commonly visit Singapore during school holidays or a long weekend and they enjoy bonding together as a family. This year, we look at travelling in big groups either with multigenerational families or with friends," he said.
Malaysia was Singapore's third largest source market in 2023 and recorded S$903 million of tourism receipts from January to December 2023.
The average length of stay by a visitor from Malaysia was 2.43 days in 2023.
Voon said among new attractions in Singapore that will entice families are the expansion of both the Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa integrated resorts – RWS's S.E.A Aquarium which is being transformed into the Singapore Oceanarium, the rejuvenation of Mandai Wildlife Reserve's parks and addition of the Mandai Rainforest Resort, as well as upgrades at The Palawan Sentosa with the brand new Sentosa Sensoryscape, which offers an immersive, multi-sensorial journey for adults and kids alike.