Tourism in Singapore, Singapore,Asia

Singapore is a popular travel destination, making tourism one of its largest industries. About 7.8 million tourists visited Singapore in 2006.[59] The total visitor arrivals reached around 10.2 million in 2007.[60] The Orchard Road shopping district is one of Singapore's most well-known and popular tourist draws. To attract more tourists, the government decided to legalise gambling and to allow two casino resorts (euphemistically called Integrated Resorts) to be developed at Marina South and Sentosa in 2005.[61] To compete with regional rivals like Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Shanghai, the government has announced that the city area would be transformed into a more exciting place by lighting up the civic and commercial buildings.[62] Cuisine has also been heavily promoted as an attraction for tourists, with the Singapore Food Festival in July organised annually to celebrate Singapore's cuisine.

Singapore is fast positioning itself as a medical tourism hub — about 200,000 foreigners seek medical care in the country each year and Singapore medical services aim to serve one million foreign patients annually by 2012 and generate USD 3 billion in revenue.[63] The government expects that the initiative could create an estimated 13,000 new jobs within the health industries.
The Merlion in Merlion Park

Singapore is a melting pot of Chinese, Malay, Indian and Arabic communities. Tourists will see women with Chinese features wearing sarongs and Arabic dress, and these cultural aspects help make Singapore an unusual destination to visit.[64]

Under the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), Wireless@SG is a government initiative to build Singapore's infocomm infrastructure. Working through IDA's Call-for-Collaboration, SingTel, iCell and QMax deploy a municipal wireless network throughout Singapore. Since late 2006, users have enjoyed free wireless access through Wi-Fi under the "basic-tier" package offered by all three operators for 3 years.

There are approximately 30,000 registered hotel rooms available in Singapore, and average occupancy is around 85%.[60]