Bullish on potential tourist arrivals from India, Singapore is focusing on increasing its hospitality infrastructure such as hotel rooms, according to a senior tourism official here.

Before the pandemic-induced lockdown, Singapore had received 1.4 million tourists from India in 2019. It then recovered to 1.1 million in 2023. With two offices in Mumbai and Delhi, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) promotes Singapore attractions as a holiday destination aggressively in India, Poh Chi Chuan, Executive Director of Exhibitions & Conferences at the STB told PTI.

Singapore is building infrastructure for tourists and business travellers such as 9,000 new hotel rooms that are being added to about 72,000 existing rooms. “We need visitors to come and fill these rooms,” Poh underlined.

The STB held a press conference to announce the inaugural APAC edition of the world-renowned National Retail Federation (NRF) Retail Big Show to be held here on June 11-13, six months after NRF 2024: Retail’s Big Show in New York City.

Singapore is just not looking at the tourist traffic out of India but also business travellers given that both countries have a growing trade and a prospering Indian economy, Poh said on Wednesday.

“We also see a lot of opportunities coming up in India in sectors such as pharma, BioMed, IT and FinTech. These are very strong industries for Singapore to increase bilateral trade,” Poh said, adding that Singapore has large-scale exhibitions and conferences catering to these sectors covering advanced technologies.

The APAC edition of NRF is expecting between 5-10 per cent of delegates for its 5,000-participant strong Singapore show in June, said Ryf Quail, managing director of the global retail event that is held annually in New York.

Industry stalwarts addressing the mega gathering include Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO of the Retailers Association of India, Shireesh Joshi, Chief Business Officer, of the Open Network for Digital Commerce, and Mathsy Kutty, APAC Leader, The Climate Pledge, Amazon.