For the first three months of this year China was top contributor to Singapore’s visitor arrivals, with 723,900 entries. The tally was up 481 percent year-on-year, and represented a 75.4-percent recovery on 2019′s pre-pandemic first quarter, according to freshly-issued data from Singapore Tourism Board (STB).

The Chinese visitors were circa 19 percent of Singapore’s total of 3.78 million overseas arrivals for the first three months of the year. The quarter’s aggregate was up 29.7 percent year-on-year.

The March total for all sources was actually down month-on-month, at 902,470. Nonetheless, China and Indonesia remained the biggest feeder markets that month, with 185,740 and 89,310 visitors respectively. They had also been the main feeder markets in the opening months of the year, but Indonesia had led in January.

China’s overall lead in Singapore’s visitor arrivals in the first quarter of this year coincided with implementation – with effect from February 9 – of mutual arrangements for 30-day visa-free travel between the two countries.

Indonesia supplied just over 549,000 visitors to Singapore in the first quarter this year, a 10.5-percent year-on-year increase. The first-quarter Indonesia visitor tally marked a 75.8 percent recovery relative to first-quarter 2019.

Neighbouring Malaysia’s first-quarter contribution of 239,540 visitors represented a 7.4 percent year-on-year decline, though it was an 84.5-percent recovery relative to the same period in 2019.

The average stay length in Singapore across all international segments in the first quarter was 3.36 days, a decline of 15.3 percent year-on-year.

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.