For February China overtook Indonesia as the top source for Singapore’s visitor arrivals, one of the China market’s best inputs since July and August last year.

In February, Singapore recorded circa 1.44 million visitor entries, of which 22.7 percent – or 326,970 in visitor arrivals – were from mainland China, according to the latest data published by Singapore Tourism Board (STB).

The February numbers coincided with the Chinese New Year holiday period on the Chinese mainland, from February 10 to February 17, and the implementation with effect from February 9, of mutual arrangements for 30-day visa-free travel between China and Singapore.

Indonesia – which had been mostly leading the market recently – was the city-state’s second largest source of tourists in February, supplying 190,760 visitors. The third largest was Malaysia, supplying 100,200.

Of all source markets, mainland China had the biggest year-on-year growth in February, at 825.9 percent.

Of the top-three source markets, those visitors from mainland China stayed the longest in Singapore, with an average of 4.22 days. The average stay length of all the international markets was 3.46 days in February, a decline of 8.7 percent year-on-year.

The latest monthly tally took Singapore’s aggregate visitor arrivals for the first two months of this year to 2.87 million, a rise by 52 percent year-on-year. Of those 2.87-million visitors, circa 18.7 percent – or 538,160 visitors – were from mainland China, making it the largest single source for Singapore’s arrivals in the period.

Singapore is home to a casino resort duopoly: Resorts World Sentosa, operated by a unit of Genting Singapore Ltd; and Marina Bay Sands, run by a unit of Las Vegas Sands Corp.

The city-state’s international visitor arrivals could reach around “15 million to 16 million” in 2024, bringing in approximately “SGD26.0 billion [US$19.4 billion] to SGD27.5 billion” in tourism receipts, STB said in an early February forecast.