Singapore's image as a tourist destination

ABSTRACT

The present study seeks to examine theimage of Singapore as a tourist destination.A sample of 131 tourists was collected at theSingapore Changi International Airport’stwo departure halls. In addition toanswering a short Likert-scalequestionnaire, respondents were asked todescribe in their own words the uniqueaspects of the country. Comparisons ofresponse differences in respect of gender,age groups, educational levels as well ascountries of origin were also conducted.Significant perceptual differences weredetected with respect to the last threecategories. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley &Sons, Ltd.

Received 2 October 2002; revised 10 March 2003; accepted 18March 2003

Keywords: tourist destination; image;Singapore.

THE CONTEXT OF SINGAPORE

As a result of the aftermath of 11 September and the global economic slowdown, the number of tourist

arrivals to Singapore dropped by 2.2% from7.69 million in 2000 to 7.52 million in 2001. Withincreasing marketing efforts by other Asiancountries trying to increase their portion of thetourists’ receipts, Singapore is losing its marketshare. A survey conducted by the SingaporeTourist Board (1999) revealed startling facts.Singapore is fast becoming a modern, familiarand expensive place, so much like the westerncountries that it has lost its attraction as ‘some-thing different’. Through years of rapid eco-nomic growth and infrastructure development,Singapore has lost most of its natural, exotic,inexpensive and ‘different’ appeal.

Singapore as a tourist destination has for many years been regarded as family-orientated, safe, modern, plenty of sun andgood food. Backed by the most efficient airportin the region and perhaps the world, a nationalairline with a strong reputation for reliabilityand service, a position as the tourist ‘hub’ and a massive tourism promotion budget, Singapore is indeed hard to beat despite the negative impressions of its small size,expense and ‘boring’ nature (The Straits Times,5 February 2003). Nevertheless, the ebb andflow of tourism receipts still very much dependon the status of the world economy and politi-cal/social stability in this part of the world. Forexample, because of the 1997–98 Asian eco-nomic crisis, the total number of visitor arrivalsexperienced a negative growth rate of -13.3%.Strong recovery was noted for the years 1999(+11.5%) and 2000 (+10.5%). The growthslipped to -10.5% (October 2001) and -14.6%

Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCHInt. J. Tourism Res. 5, 305–313 (2003)Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/jtr.437

Singapore’s Image as a Tourist DestinationTak Kee Hui and Tai Wai David Wan*Business School, National University of Singapore, 1 Business Link, Singapore 117592

*Correspondence to: T. W. D. Wan, Department of Man-agement and Organization, NUS Business School,National University of Singapore, 1 Business Link, Singapore 117592.E-mail: [email protected]

Research Note

(November 2001) immediately after the 11 September tragedy. It began to pick up in 2002with a growth rate of merely 0.1% (SingaporeTourism Board (STB), November 2002).

Intense competition from around the regionserves as a wake-up call to reposition thecountry and to redefine its image. A basicunderstanding of tourists’ perceptions andneeds will help Singapore to initiate informedmarketing strategy to position itself as a choicedestination. By creating and managing anappropriate destination image, STB should bein a better position to market the country as akey tourist destination in this part of the world.

Research about the image of Singapore as atourist destination has always drawn interestamong government bodies, hotels and travelagencies in the tourism industry. The STB hasconducted surveys on overseas tourists on ayearly basis. Respondents were asked whataspects of Singapore they found most appeal-ing to them. Throughout the years, Singapore’sclean and green environment continues toemerge as the winning factor. Most touristsstill regard Singapore as a shopping paradiseand as having beautiful scenery. A hearteningnote is that more tourists find the island to bea safe and stable, orderly and disciplined envi-ronment. However, they do not put its ‘warm,friendly and courteous people’ and ‘varied andexotic food’ among the few top factors.

The purpose of this paper seeks to ascertainthe image of Singapore as a tourist destination,using the framework developed by Choi, et al.(1999). Both quantitative and qualitativemethods are used to capture the attributes andtourists’ holistic impressions of the country.Implications of the tourists’ perceptions will beexplored to highlight their possible impact onthe marketing focus of the country.

THE IMPORTANCE OF IMAGE DESTINATION

The importance of a tourist destination’simage is widely acknowledged because itaffects an individual’s subjective perception,his/her consequent behaviour and destinationchoice (Chen and Hsu, 2000; Qu et al., 2000;Joppe et al., 2001; Kozak, 2001, 2002; Klenosky,2002; Seddighi and Theocharous, 2002).Guthrie and Gale (1991) argued that ‘images

are more important than tangible resourcesand perceptions rather than reality are whatmotivate consumers to act or not to act.’Although this may be a rather broad claim, weare of the view that because the person has notbeen to the place before, his/her knowledgeabout the destination is likely to be based onsecondary sources only.

In the field of marketing, tourist destinationimage (TDI) has been the subject of consider-able research during the past three decades.Echtner and Ritchie (1991, 1993) acknowl-edged the existence of three continuums thatsupport the image of any destination: (i) func-tional–psychological, (ii) unique–common and (iii) attribute–holistic. Choi et al. (1999) bor-rowed their framework to assess Hong Kong’stourist destination image. An example of aunique feature of Hong Kong is its Star Ferryor the Victoria Peak. No other places outsideHong Kong offer the same attractions. On theother hand, the presence of lots of skyscrapersis considered as common to many other citiesand hence not unique to Hong Kong. Anexample of the functional attribute of HongKong is its good nightlife, whereas local residents’ attitude towards foreigners is morepsychological in nature (i.e. less observable).

There are many ways of measuring TDI.These approaches can be divided into twomain categories; (i) qualitative and (ii) quanti-tative techniques. The first category encom-passes methods such as free elicitation andopen-ended questions, focus groups and in-depth interviews and expert discussions. Thesecond category mainly consists of statisticalprocedures involving bivariate (t-test and cor-relations analysis) and multivariate methodssuch as factor analysis, cluster analysis,anovas and manovas.

In general, multivariate techniques predom-inate because they allow for the determinationof latent multidimensional structure (compo-nents) of TDI as well as average scoring as anumeric measurement of image (Gallarza et al.,2001). The most commonly used proceduresfor measuring destination image are informa-tion reduction techniques: multidimensionalscaling, principal components analysis andfactor analysis. These are statistical methodsused for classifying a large number of variablesinto a limited number of dimensions or factors.

306 T. K. Hui and T. W. D. Wan

Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Tourism Res. 5, 305–313 (2003)

However, the study of TDI using only statistical procedures can only capture thecommon and attribute-based aspects of imageand not the unique and holistic aspects (Choiet al., 1999). To counter this problem, an‘unstructured’ methodological approach, suchas open-ended questions, should be deployed.This method, although not as widely used, canbe seen in the works of Choi et al. (1999), Reilly(1990) and Echtner and Ritchie (1993).

METHODOLOGY

The survey instrument consists of three sec-tions. The first section of the questionnaire com-prises of 37 Likert statements which are used tomeasure the functional and psychologicalattributes. Examples of those items thatmeasure leisure and tourist amenities are: ‘Thereare many interesting places in Singapore’;‘Availability of good tourist information’; and‘There are many packaged tours available inSingapore’. Examples of items measuring shop-ping and food paradise are: ‘Food is varied andexotic in Singapore’; and ‘Singapore is a cos-mopolitan city’. Examples of local residents andnight life are: ‘The local people are honest’; ‘Thelocal people are friendly’ and ‘Singapore has agood nightlife’. Other attributes (each mea-sured by at least two items) include political sta-bility, weather, local culture, cleanliness as wellas personal safety and convenience.

Twenty-five of the items were based on theprevious study by Choi et al. (1999). The rest ofthe items were derived from the annual surveyreports conducted by the Singapore TourismBoard. Respondents were asked to rate theirlevel of agreement on a five-point scaleranging from 1 being ‘strongly disagree’ to 5being ‘strongly agree’.

In the second part of the questionnaire, threeopen-ended questions adapted directly fromEchtner and Ritchie (1993) were used tocapture the qualitative aspect of our study. The three questions are firstly, what images orcharacteristics come to mind when you thinkof Singapore as a vacation destination? Sec-ondly, how would you describe the atmos-phere or mood that you would expect toexperience while visiting Singapore? Thirdly,list any distinctive or unique tourist attractionsthat you can think of in Singapore.

The third section includes questions onrespondents’ demographic background. Theseinclude respondents’ age, educational level,country of origin and gender.

The sample was selected at the two depar-ture halls of Changi International Airport, Singapore. Data collection (face-to-face admin-istered by the researcher) was carried out on 1and 3 March 2002 with a target sample size of160. Out of this 160, only 82% (131) of thesurveys were fully completed and used for thisstudy. Following Choi et al. (1999), we defineour population as visitors that had stayed forat least 1 day but less than 1 year in Singapore.Systematic random sampling was used andsurvey questionnaires were distributed toevery fifth person waiting at the check-in coun-ters of the various airlines.

The 37 Likert statements on Singapore’simage attributes were explored by principalcomponent factor analysis and Varimax rota-tion giving rise to an eight-factor solution. Thepurpose is to summarise information in alarger set of variables into fewer constructsthat were deemed to represent the imagedimension of Singapore as a tourist destina-tion. After the items have been grouped intofactors, we measure the internal consistency(reliability) of items within each factor usingCronbach’s alpha tests.

To further detect whether tourists withvarious demographic characteristic had differ-ent perceptions of the image attributes, analy-sis of variance (anova) and t-test wereperformed depending on the number of sub-samples available (t-test for two subgroupsand F-test for three or more). To meet the statistical assumption of normality on thesamples’ distribution, demographic variableswere recoded if any of the subgroup wassmaller than 30 (minimum of 30 data points formeaningful statistical analysis).

RESULTS

Respondents’ profile

Out of the 131 respondents surveyed, malesconstitute 55.7% and females constitute 44.3%(see Table 1). The majority of the touristsbelong to the 20–29 years age group (44.3%),

Singapore as a Tourist Destination 307


followed by the 40–49 years age group (16.8%).Of the respondents, 65.7% had at least finishedcollege/degree and another 26.0% had fin-ished high school.

An overwhelming 46.6% of all the respon-dents are from northern and southeastern Asia.The next largest group (26.0%) is from Europe,followed by New Zealand and Australia(10.7%), North, Central and South America(8.4%), other parts of Asia (6.9%) and Africa(1.5%). This is reasonably representative of theprofile of visitors visiting Singapore betweenJanuary and November 2002. According to theSTB, 62.7% of the tourists were from northernand southeastern Asia, 14.7% were fromEurope, 8.7% from the Oceania, 5.6% from theAmericas, 7.3% from other parts of Asia and0.95% from Africa (Singapore Tourist Board,2002, p. 11).

When asked to name their sources (multipleanswers permitted) of information about Singapore, six in ten mentioned newspapersand television, followed by friends and rela-tives (52.7%), travel books/guides (41.2%),previous visit to Singapore (29.8%) and travelagents/tour operators (28.2%). It wouldappear that advertising via the mass mediaand word-of-mouth constitutes the two mostimportant means of attracting potential visi-tors to Singapore.

Results of factor analysis

The purpose of factor analysis is to combinethe large number of statements into a smallerset of factors to represent the image dimensionof Singapore. It is a rule of thumb that factorloadings greater than 0.30 (absolute value) are



Table 1. Profile of respondents (n = 131)

Frequency Per cent

Sex:male 73 55.7female 58 44.3

Age:below 20 11 8.420–29 58 44.330–39 17 1340–49 22 16.850–59 15 11.560 and above 8 6.1

Highest education:below high school 11 8.4high school 34 26college/degree 22 55postgraduate and beyond 14 10.7

Country of origin:southeast and east Asia 61 46.6Asia other than the above mentioned region 9 6.9Europe 34 26North, Central and South America 11 8.4Africa 1 1.5Oceania including New Zealand and Australia 14 10.7

Source of information about Singapore:Newspaper/TV 78 59.5Travel agents/tour operators 37 28.2Friends and relations 69 52.7Travel books/guides 54 41.2Previous visit to Singapore 39 29.8Posters 1 0.08Others 6 4.6

considered significant. Loadings 0.40 are con-sidered more important, and if the loadings are0.5 or greater, they are considered very signi-ficant (Hair et al., 1995). Thus, we drop state-ments as not being statistically significant withfactor loadings less than 0.3 from furtheranalysis. Factor loadings were then used toassign a name to each factor. Specifically, itemswith higher loadings were considered moreimportant (statistically speaking) and hencehave a greater influence on the naming offactors.

After the items have been grouped intofactors, we seek to measure the internal con-sistency of items within each factor. This relia-bility test was carried out via Cronbach’s alphatests. Items that have alpha coefficient below0.5 were deleted from further analysis. In ourstudy, two factors were removed out of theinitial ten factors leaving an eight-factor solu-tion (see Table 2).

Factor 1 is composed of six items relating toLeisure and Tourist Amenities. Examples are:‘There are many packaged tours available inSingapore’, ‘Good tourist facilities and servicesare available’ and ‘There are many interestingplaces in Singapore’. Factor 2 is related to Singapore’s image as a Shopping and FoodParadise. The factor comprises eight items. Forexample, ‘There is a wide variety of a productavailable in Singapore’, ‘Food is varied andexotic in Singapore’ and ‘Singapore is a goodplace to shop’.

Factor 3 comprises six items and includesthose relating to the Local Residents and theNightlife such as ‘The local people are friendly’and ‘Singapore has a good nightlife’. Itemswith regard to Political Stability are capturedin factor 4. It consists of three items such as‘Singapore is a politically stable country’, ‘Singapore is a progressive country’ and ‘Singapore is an orderly country’. The fifthfactor, Adventure and Weather, relates to theweather of Singapore and its image as anadventurous holiday destination.

Local culture is represented by factor 6,which measures the degree of similarity of the architectural styles, lifestyle and customsbetween Singapore and the respondents’ homecountries. Factor 7, Cleanliness, is composed of two items ‘Singapore is clean and green’ and ‘There are lots of gardens and parks in

Singapore’. The last factor, Personal Safety andConvenience, is concerned with the safetylevel of Singapore and the convenience level of the transport system.

The summated means for all factors wereabove 2.5, which indicates that the respondentsgenerally had a positive image of Singapore. Inparticular, factor 4, which is concerned withthe political stability of Singapore, has a highsummated mean score of 4.504. The summatedmean score for Personal Safety and Conve-nience is the second highest (mean = 4.496)owing to the country’s low crime rate andwell-developed transport system. A high sum-mated mean score for the Cleanliness factor(mean = 4.244) further confirms Singapore’sstatus as a ‘Garden City’ and affirms the Gov-ernment’s effort in keeping the environmentneat and clean.

Although the majority of the summatedmeans for all factors were well above theneutral point of 2.5, it should be highlightedthat the Local Culture factor obtains the lowestsummated mean score of 3.07. This may be dueto the fact that as Singapore becomes increas-ingly urbanised, there are increasingly moremodern buildings and fewer unique architec-tural buildings that truly reflect our heritage.Indeed, this can be seen in the high item scores for ‘There are many modern build-ings in Singapore’ (4.428) and ‘Singapore is a cosmopolitan city’ (4.125). In addition, as Singaporean’s lifestyle becomes increasinglywesternised, some of our unique local customsare being forgotten. Low-score items such as‘There are many restful and relaxing places inSingapore’ (2.886) and ‘There are lots of naturalscenic beauties in Singapore’ (2.405) shouldalso be noted. Like Hong Kong, Singapore’sfast pace of life and restricted physical envi-ronment contributed little to a more relaxedand restful holiday atmosphere.

The three continuums of destination image

Following Choi et al.’s (1999) work on HongKong’s image as a tourist destination, the meanscores for functional and psychological attrib-utes are presented in upper part of Table 3.These include ratings for ‘Many modern build-ings’ (4.428), ‘Wide variety of products avail-able’ (4.176), ‘Food is varied and exotic’ (4.153),





Tabl

e 2.

Fact

or a

naly

sis

of im

age

item

s

Fact

or n

ame

Item

s w

ithi

n fa

ctor

Mea

nL

oad

ing

Alp

haE

igen

valu

e

Fact

or 1

: lei

sure

and

tou

rist

3.

150

0.82

87.

205

amen

itie

sT

here

are

man

y in

tere

stin

g pl

aces

in S

inga

pore

3.27

50.

520

The

re a

re m

any

rest

ful a

nd r

elax

ing

plac

es in

Sin

gapo

re2.

886

0.59

7T

here

are

lots

of

natu

ral s

ceni

c be

auty

in S

inga

pore

2.40

50.

565

The

re a

re m

any

pack

aged

tou

rs a

vaila

ble

in S

inga

pore

3.33

60.

752

Ava

ilabi

lity

of g

ood

tou

rist

info

rmat

ion

3.56

50.

742

Goo

d t

ouri

st f

acili

ties

and

ser

vice

s ar

e av

aila

ble

3.43

50.

749

Fact

or 2

: sho

ppin

g an

d f

ood

4.

155

0.80

04.

466

para

dis

eT

here

are

man

y m

oder

n bu

ildin

gs in

Sin

gapo

re4.

428

0.47

9T

here

are

man

y in

tere

stin

g ev

ents

and

fes

tiva

ls in

Sin

gapo

re3.

947

0.64

2Si

ngap

ore

is a

cos

mop

olit

an c

ity

4.14

50.

684

The

re a

re a

wid

e va

riet

y of

pro

duc

ts a

vaila

ble

in S

inga

pore

4.17

60.

746

Sing

apor

e is

a g

ood

pla

ce t

o sh

op3.

863

0.55

2G

ood

qua

lity

of p

rod

ucts

4.04

60.

583

Food

is v

arie

d a

nd e

xoti

c in

Sin

gapo

re4.

153

0.53

2M

any

peop

le s

peak

Eng

lish

4.48

10.

417

Fact

or 3

: loc

al r

esid

ents

and

3.

639

0.82

82.

847

nigh

tlif

eSi

ngap

ore

has

a go

od n

ight

life

3.48

10.

433

Sing

apor

e ha

s an

exo

tic

imag

e3.

328

0.49

4T

he lo

cal p

eopl

e ar

e fr

iend

ly3.

901

0.56

9T

he lo

cal p

eopl

e ar

e co

urte

ous

3.58

00.

730

The

loca

l peo

ple

are

hard

wor

king

3.85

50.

771

The

loca

l peo

ple

are

hone

st3.

687

0.82

9Fa

ctor

4: p

olit

ical

sta

bilit

y4.

504

0.77

12.

149

Sing

apor

e is

a p

olit

ical

ly s

tabl

e co

untr

y4.

573

0.79

6Si

ngap

ore

is a

pro

gres

sive

cou

ntry

4.38

20.

819

Sing

apor

e is

an

ord

erly

cou

ntry

4.55

70.

662

Fact

or 5

: ad

vent

ure

and

3.

179

0.51

61.

675

wea

ther

Aho

liday

in S

inga

pore

is a

rea

l ad

vent

ure

2.85

50.

578

Sing

apor

e ha

s pl

easa

nt w

eath

er3.

504

0.64

5Fa

ctor

6: l

ocal

cul

ture

3.07

30.

857

1.61

2T

he a

rchi

tect

ural

sty

les

of t

he b

uild

ings

are

sim

ilar

to t

hose

3.

099

0.84

2in

you

r ho

me

coun

try

The

life

styl

e an

d c

usto

ms

in S

inga

pore

are

sim

ilar

to t

hose

3.04

60.

899

in y

our

hom

e co

untr

yFa

ctor

7: c

lean

lines

s4.

244

0.64

61.

309

Sing

apor

e is

cle

an a

nd g

reen

4.38

90.

770

The

re a

re m

any

gard

ens

and

par

ks in

Sin

gapo

re4.

099

0.78

2Fa

ctor

8: p

erso

nal s

afet

y an

d

4.49

60.

500

1.24

3co

nven

ienc

eSi

ngap

ore

is a

saf

e pl

ace

to v

isit

4.62

60.

698

Sing

apor

e ha

s a

wel

l-d

evel

oped

tra

nspo

rt s

yste

m4.

366

0.72

5



‘Safe place to visit’ (4.626), ‘Politically stable’(4.573) and ‘Orderly country’ (4.557).

The functional and psychological holisticimages also are represented in the upper partof Table 3. Singapore is generally regarded asa good place to shop and to transit to otherneighbouring Asian countries. Regarding theatmosphere or mood experienced in Singa-pore, respondents generally felt that it is a safeand modern place that has a clean and greenenvironment.

The functional–psychological and common–unique components of destination image aredepicted in the lower part of Table 3. OrchardRoad, Sentosa and the hawker centres aresome of the distinct tourist spots. On the otherhand, respondents also felt that Singapore ishighly regulated with too many rules and‘fines’ and its citizens are much disciplined.

Results of ANOVA

The anovas, Kruskal–Wallis and t-tests wereconducted in order to identify significant dif-ferences in the image attributes, obtained fromfactor analysis, between demographic groupsin terms of age, gender, educational level and country of origin. To meet the statisticalassumption of normality on the sample’s distribution, demographic variables were

regrouped if any subsample size is less than 30.(Bhattacharyya and Johnson, 1997). A furthertest of homogeneity of variances was con-ducted using Levine’s test.

Results from anova and t-tests reveal thatthere are no significant differences in percep-tion between the different gender groups forall image attributes. However, significant dif-ference (p < 0.05) was found between people of different country origins with regard to their perceptions towards ‘Local residents andnightlife’ and ‘Local Culture’.

Travellers from Europe, America and Australia/New Zealand tend to have a morepositive image of Singapore and its image ashaving a bustling nightlife when comparedwith those from northern and southeasternAsia. Here, it is important to define nightlife asactivities that are performed during the nightand not restricted to just the club and pubscene. Therefore, the fact that Singapore is lessoften seen as having a bustling nightlife byregional travellers could be due to the fact thatmany regional countries have an equallybustling nightlife. The presence of night-markets (also known as ‘yeshi’ or ‘Pasar-Malam’) are common across the region. Thesenight markets often open till the small hours ofthe morning and are always crowded withpeople.

Table 3. The attribute–holistic, functional–psychological and common–unique images of Singapore (basedon the framework proposed by Choi et al. (1999, p. 364)

Functional (Mean/%) Psychological (Mean/%)

Attribute–holistic:attribute Many modern buildings 4.428 Safe place to visit 4.626

Wide variety of products 4.176 Politically stable country 4.573available

Food is varied and exotic 4.153 Orderly country 4.557holistic Good shopping place 32.4% Safe place to visit 54.0%

Good transport links to 28.3% Modern 41.0%other Asian countries

Good hotel facilities 22.0% Clean and green 33.7%Unique–Common:

unique Orchard Road 45.8% Clean and green 33.7%Sentosa 43.4% Regulated environment 30.5%Hawker Centres 29.2% Disciplined citizens 26.9%

common Good shopping place 32.4% Modern 41.0%Good hotel facilities 22.0% Diverse culture and people 16.7%Good transport system 31.0% Friendly and courteous people 15.4%

‘Regional’ travellers (those from northernand southeastern Asia) perceive Singapore tohave closer cultural affinity with their countryof origin as compared with ‘international’ trav-ellers. This is not surprising given the closeproximity of regional countries and, as men-tioned earlier, similar ethnic composition. Singapore, being a multi-ethnic society is actu-ally a blend of different cultures from theChinese, Malay and Indians. These culturescan be found in neighbouring countries aswell, hence, the close cultural affinity.

In addition, significant difference (p < 0.05)was also discovered between different agegroups with regard to the ‘Singapore’s image asa shopping and food paradise’. Using the TukeyKramer test, difference in perception for ‘Sin-gapore’s image as a shopping and food par-adise’ was found to be significant between agegroup 1 and 3. We attribute this difference inperception to the differing purchasing powerand the objective which respondents choose tocome to Singapore. Visitors of age 50 and aboveare usually retirees. Hence, they tend to havehigher purchasing power than visitors of agesbelow 29. The higher purchasing power couldalso translate to a greater capacity for shoppingas compared with the younger visitors. Fur-thermore, younger visitors are more adventur-ous and seek to explore when they visit a foreign country. Shopping and eating to them may not be a unique selling point of acountry.

Significant difference (p < 0.05) was also dis-covered between different educational back-ground for attributes ‘Singapore’s image as a shopping and food paradise’ and ‘LocalWeather’. Although statistically different, there might not be a feasible interpretation.However, it is also important to note that edu-cational background might have interactionswith other demographic variables such ascountry of origin and age, hence making it dif-ficult to isolate the results of just one demo-graphic variable.

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS

Although the overall image of Singapore is pos-itive, it remains a challenge for the country todistinguish itself from other large cities such asKuala Lumpur, Manila, Bangkok, Hong Kong

or Taipei. This is difficult as Singapore becomesincreasingly westernised and urbansed. Thispoint can be seen in the low scores for the ‘LocalCulture’ items. Visitors tend to feel that there islittle distinction in architectural styles of thelocal buildings from those of their home coun-tries. This is especially so for visitors from theWestern countries and cities such as HongKong, Shanghai, Seoul and Tokyo where thereare many similarly styled modern build-ings. The Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore should look into preserving morearchitectural buildings that reflect the country’sunique heritage and culture, especially in areassuch as Chinatown and Little India.

Furthermore, given that Singapore lacksnatural and scenic beauty, strateiges should bedesigned in a way that it does not place itselfinto direct competition with its neighbours.Our findings suggest that Singapore is stronglyassociated as being politically stable (mean =4.5), safe and convenient (mean = 4.5) as wellas clean (mean = 4.2). These can be capitalisedon in the country’s promotion packages. More-over, as the respondents’ perception that Sin-gapore as a reasonably good place to shop(mean = 3.9) and to find good food (mean = 4.2)is not particularly favourable, more intensivemarketing effort should be made to enhancethe offerings of unique events such as the ‘Singapore Food Festival’ and ‘The Great Singapore Sales’.

Another sustainable core competency thatSingapore can work on is to promote itself asa hub of ASEAN [Association of South EastAsian Nations] and a spring board to northAsia, south Asia and Oceania. To attracttourists to solely visit Singapore will be a muchharder task than positioning Singapore as astop-over destination to other countries withinthe region. After all, most tourists visiting Sin-gapore usually do not spend more than 5 dayshere. Changi International Airport with itshigh connectivity within the region andaround the world is also another plus point inpursuing this strategy. To implement the strat-egy, the Singapore Tourism Board couldperhaps go into agreements with other tourismboards within ASEAN to promote the region.

From our results, it was found that touristsfrom different country origins have differentperceptions of Singapore. Hence, it makes sense



from the marketing point of view to segmentthe tourist market by geographical regions. Forexample, for travellers from northern Asia, Singapore as a shopping/food paradise and itsequatorial location should be emphasisedrather than the cultural side as countries withinthe immediate region tend to have a similarethnic background. However, Singapore as amelting pot of cultures can be highlighted in promotional efforts targeted at travellers from America, Europe and Oceania. Given thelimited size of our sample and the relativelynarrow focus of this study (perception of thecountry’s image), more work needs to becarried out in future to ascertain the key deter-minants of Singapore as a tourist destination.

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Singapore's image as a tourist destination