In recent years, we have seen that a lot of concert, events, entertainment and particularly sporting events have become the drivers of Tourism receipts. Chee Hok Yean, President, HVA Asia Pacific shared insights on the “Rise of concert, event, entertainment & sports tourism as drivers of tourism receipts” while presenting at the TDM Global Summit Singapore 2025. We bring you excerpts from the same.
On the available Event spaces in Singapore she said that: “We have the China Exhibition, Singapore Expo, the Esplanade, SunTec, Royal Ascent, Eagle Stadium, and we also have the SKA Theatre. All these places, as you can see on the map of Singapore, it's spread out, but mostly around the central region, like where we are.”
Growing MICE infrastructure in Singapore
The incoming infrastructure that is very critical in order to bring in more concerts, more exhibitions, more events. She elaborated: “First, we have the NS Square, which is actually the former shopping centre that we had for many years. So that's going to be completed in sort of like a year's time. Marina Bay Sands, we already have many rooms, but we're going to come up with another tower, and it's going to have a 15,000-seat capacity."
“So we picked up all the data from STB, the MICE Travellers, as you can see. The number, we always use 2019 as a reference, because that's just before COVID. In 2019, we have over 800,000 of MICE Travellers. In 2023, after the opening it went up to close to a million. But 2024, we saw close to 1.2 million MICE Travellers into Singapore."
"As you can see, listed here are the three main source markets, Indonesia, Malaysia, China and India. Forming big numbers. So, of course, during the COVID, there's no record of data.”
Events and more from 2023 moving to 2026
Singapore offers many incentives. “So, you can see there are the grants and there are the partnerships that the government has rolled out and has encouraged whether it's the public or the private sector to invest into the infrastructure and build the plans for all the concerts and entertainment and all that.”
"In 2023, we have a handful of events. This is again coming out from COVID. In 2024, we have more events, in 2025, we have about the same number of events. And of course, we're moving into 2026. At the moment, it's still fluid. In 2026-2027, we don't really have that many numbers. In terms of sporting events, we have tennis, the Asia Cup, the Singapore Grand Prix, the SEA Games.”
Music concerts rope in the numbers
Concerts are always a hot topic, and they are majorly influencing the travel numbers. Chee Hok Yean added: “I just wanted to highlight some of these numbers that come into Singapore and how it impacted the hotel industry and also to a large extent the tourism sector. Visitor arrivals in March reached nearly close to 10,000 in 2024."
"The Taylor Swift concert. I'm sure a number of you have attended that. Or you know people who have flown in for this event. We see the colours, right? 2023, 2024, 2025. And there's a big spike in 2024 and 2025 due to Taylor Swift concert during March. So March typically is just slowly ramping up, right? Coming up from January, February. But it was a sharp increase in 2024 and 2025."
Visitor expenditure rises up the curve
"From the visitor expenditure, as you can see, in Q1 2023, it's about $6 billion, and in this year, this quarter, it's gone up to $8 billion. So quarter by quarter, it's gone up quite a lot. You can see the breakdown on the right in terms of what do people spend on. Everything has gone up. Shopping, accommodation, F&B, even online components. From $6 billion spent to about $8 billion. And the second table just shows you the other areas."
She concludes: “So, you can see that what do you do to bring more people into your country or your city's arrivals? You need to provide events, meetings, concerts, entertainment, and sports to attract them.”
