Ports & destinations

The latest statistics released by Singapore Tourism Board indicates a significant fall in cruise throughput to the city in 2014. Alan Lam reports.

In a largely unexpected development, the number of cruise ship calls to Singapore fell from 391 in 2013 to 372 in 2014; correspondingly the number of passengers dropped from 1.03 million to just 890,000 in the same period.

The trend was not restricted to the cruise sector, the overall visitors arriving in Singapore contracted by 3.1%, to 15.1 million. This was the first recorded decline since 2009, a worrying development for the cruise business as the fall was sharper in this sector, about 8-9%.

One of the main reasons for this contraction could be the industry’s focus having been decidedly switched to destinations in the north, closer to its main source market, China. Destinations in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam have benefitted most from the cruise boom in China.

However, for 2015, Singapore expects a 10-15% increase in cruise throughput, largely thanks to increased deployment by major cruise lines, such as Royal Caribbean International, which is planning a year round deployment in Singapore.