DOMESTIC TOURISM IN SINGAPORE DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: THE INADVERTENT SOCIAL EXPERIMENT ON LOCAL EXPLORATIONS

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has placed severe limits on mobilities worldwide. Singapore, which relies heavily on the movement of people, goods, and money, put up a slew of contingency plans to support its economy when the pandemic hit. One industry that bore the brunt of this immobility was tourism. The Singapore Tourism Board, a statutory board under the Ministry of Trade and Industry, turned towards stimulating local spending through domestic tourism to sustain the industry. However, given that the concept of domestic tourism in Singapore has been relatively non-existent before, the sudden prevalence of this new sector has resulted in changes in the industry among consumers, businesses and policymakers. Covid-19 has thus created an accidental “social experiment” for the domestic tourism scene in Singapore. With no international travel, and hefty governmental incentives to “rediscover” Singapore, this thesis explores how Singaporeans and tourism companies have reacted to reconcile with and reconceptualise domestic tourism. This thesis will consider if the complementary relationship between nation-building and international tourism would continue to hold in domestic tourism through an analysis of the role of the mythic Singapore Story in domestic tourism. The industry has also not experienced the most even support – hotels and major attractions have received the bulk of Singaporeans’ spending while sightseeing tours remain lagging far behind. Thus, going beyond stereotypes and assumptions about the typical “apathetic” Singaporean consumer, this thesis will focus on the least popular domestic tourism activity of sightseeing tours to suggest that despite their apparent unpopularity among Singaporeans, such tours are valuable as they allow Singaporean participants to tell their own stories about the places they have explored.