Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

Singapore Tourism Board targets Coimbatore

K. Jeshi

Coimbatore: Strengthening destination visibility, expanding focus beyond leisure and improving trade engagement will be the highlights of Singapore Tourism Board (STB) in 2006 to ensure sustained growth of Indians visiting Singapore.

The objective is to strengthen visitors to metro cities and focus on growth of secondary markets and to promote Singapore as the No. 1 overseas destination among various key customer segments in India. Last year, more than eight million people visited Singapore, of which 5.8 lakh were from India. "India now ranks fifth among countries visiting Singapore with Indonesia leading the list followed by China, Australia and Japan. This year, we expect more than seven lakh visitors," said Bridget GOH, area director of Southern India, Sri Lanka and Maldives of STB during her visit to Coimbatore. Though the primary key customer segment is family, STB wants to tap the potential of young professionals and executives, the Highly Mobile Individuals (HMI) segment. "Basically, people in the 25 to 35 age group, who can afford to travel any time of the year for a long weekend- singles, honeymooners and couples without children," she adds.

Meetings, Incentive Travel, Conventions and Exhibitions (MICE) packages would be promoted in tier II cities in a big way. "Coimbatore is the second largest contributor next to Tiruchi in terms of visitors from tier II cities. Last year, Coimbatore registered a growth of 62 per cent and more than 3,000 people visited Singapore. We expect more visitors from the business segment this year," she adds. Among the metros, she says Chennai had evolved as a mature market and had registered a growth of 18.6 per cent. "Last year, the number of visitors from Chennai was more than 70,000," she adds.

STB would tap the potential of education, another key customer segment, through short-term enriching programme, where management schools could take students on a study mission to Singapore and through long-term diploma, degree and postgraduate courses as per global standards. The Overseas School Trip (OST) packages, initiated in Tamil Nadu to take school students on a four-day trip to Singapore, would be expanded to other cities. "The phase II campaign of STB titled Uniquely Singapore will use testimonials from visitors apart from talking about the evolution of Singapore," she adds.

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