MARINA BAY AS A TOURIST HUB

Abstract

The tourism industry in Singapore has always been a major source of revenue as it is a powerful economic force providing employment, income, foreign exchange and tax revenue. With the rapid pace of urbanisation and globalisation, the trend has been promoting Singapore as an urban tourist hub. The Marina Bay area has many attributes of being a tourist hub. However, it has been relatively neglected as compared to Orchard Road. With this in mind, this dissertation seeks to examine how the Marina Bay area can be synergised to become a major tourist draw for Singapore. A survey questionnaire consisting of 11 questions was drawn up and conducted at the malls in the Marina Bay area. The data collected will be sorted out into data categories and a composite ranking will be used to rank the factors. Next, factor analysis will be used to study the relationship pattern among the factors. The data will then be reduced to a smaller number of components, with the highly correlated factors being removed from the survey results. This is done using the Principle Components Method. The results show that the Marina Bay area does have factors that attracts tourist, although shoppers are still biased towards Orchard Road. The Marina Bay area can improve on areas such as accessibility, variety of food and beverage facilities and shopping and commercial facilities. With improvements, Marina Bay can definitely become a world-class tourist area comparable to Orchard Road. Lastly, further research can be done on tourism studies and issues, such as the sustainability of tourist attractions in Singapore.