Bangalore: Singapore is a favourite destination for many Bangaloreans. Last year, according to the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), 36,622 people travelled from Bangalore to Singapore, up from 29,398, a growth of 25 per cent, and this trend is likely to continue.

Giving details of the growth pattern, STB Regional Director Kang Siew-Kheng said that with more flights and low fares, the number of travellers is going to go up further. And Bangaloreans are increasingly looking at cruise options (57 per cent growth over last year).

Ms. Kang, who took up the STB posting recently, said, "We have been seeing the evolution of the Indian market since we started our engagement over a decade ago. More Indians than ever are travelling." Overall, India is ranked fifth in the number of tourist arrivals into Singapore, after Indonesia, China, Australia and Japan. Of the 8.94 million arrivals in Singapore, India accounted for 5.83 lakhs.

The STB, she said, will focus on family leisure travel, business travel and education, for which it has rolled out the "uniquely Singapore" campaign to be run over then next 18 months.

The STB will be organising five road shows, specifically for education, in its bid to attract Indian students . "2006 will also see us reinforce our outreach to offer quality education to Indian students. With renowned educational institutes such as IIM-B, XLRI and S.P. Jain setting up in Singapore we are carving out a niche in this segment in Asia and hope to attract more students from India."

Bridgette Goh, STB Area Director, Chennai, said that the STB in January 2005 launched Tourism 2015, a ten-year plan for the tourism industry, to take visitor arrivals to 17 million.

A $2 billion (Singapore) tourism development fund has been created to support the plan , she said.

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