The Lion city has been ranked fifth globally for international visitors and fourth worldwide for visitor to spend in the latest Mastercard Global Destination Cities Index. Singapore saw 13.11 million visitors in 2016, 8.8 per cent up year on year, said the report.
Followed by London and Paris, Bangkok, with 19.41 million, claimed the top spot for the third year running in terms of international visitors.
Deborah Heng, country manager, Mastercard Singapore, said, "With tourism a key contributor to Singapore's economy, it's also notable that this year-on-year growth in visitor arrivals is accompanied by the highest overall tourist expenditure in Asia.”
“This excellent showing demonstrates how collaboration between the public and private sectors can drive the right results for the local economy,” Heng added.
Singapore is forecast to receive 2.6 per cent more visitors and 0.3 per cent more in spend in 2017. Meanwhile, visitor expenditure in Singapore grew from USD13.07 billion in 2015 to USD15.69 billion in 2016.
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While the report's figure differs from the Singapore Tourism Board's figure, which estimates that some 16.4 million visitors came to Singapore last year, this could be due to the methodology used as Mastercard looks at arrivals by air and sea while Singapore Tourism Board (STB) also includes land.
