I was reading the news recently where it was reported that Changi Airport handled 4.33 million passenger movements in January 2013. That was where it hit me that the current population whitepaper didn't seem to talk about tourists coming into Singapore.
It makes sense... If you're upgrading the infrastructure to support the population, you will also need to take into account that tourists will need someway of getting around Singapore
Using the worst case assumption that all the passenger movements translates to tourists that had to move around Singapore, that will mean that almost 10 million people were in Singapore in January 2013.
Is that why we feel that we're increasingly being squeezed in our own country?
7 comments:
The number of tourists in Singapore seems to have been ignored in the calculations on this island's population and the infrastructure needed to support it. At least, it has not been mentioned by the govt.
Just on a rough count, we have about 6.5 million people on the island generally NOW - the 5.3million population, and the about 1.2 million tourists on average who come in per month according to govt figures. Presumably, there will be fewer some months and more in others.
This I take it does not include the Singaporeans living or studying abroad who drop in.
So there you go, we have 6.5 million people Already in this country. And we don't have the infrastructure to support this number by a long short. This even as we talk of increasing the number of people living and working here.
Has the growing number of tourists been factored in to the grand plans for infrastructure. Possibly not. So many things appear to be left out or overlooked in planning these days.
i understand where you are coming from and to some extent i agree with you that tourists add to the number of people in singapore. however, not all of them will stay for the full month. So, our population figures do not actually hit 10 million in that month.
Don't think so. The passenger movement include incoming and outgoing. So, roughly half that number will be in town. Also, this halved-number will only make sense if all visitors stay exactly one month in Singapore. Which is not the case. Don't have the exact figure, but many years ago, the average length of stay is about 2-3 days. Assuming with the operation of the casinos, garden by the bay, and recent tourist attractions, the average length of stay is now, what, say 4-6 days? Which means on any one day, the number of visitors to Singapore is 4.33 divided by 2 divided by 5 (30 days a month divided by length of stay of 6 days), or 0.433 million.
Well, the author did say using the worst case scenario, aka 4.33 mil pple flying into our tiny red dot and not flying out until the next month. Then I guess that will hit a max of 10 mil.. Hahaha..
Note that we have not taken into account tourists travelling on road via Malaysia and maybe cruises..
You're right. Passenger movement includes both in and out of Singapore. I am using the worst case scenario because you have to ensure that your infrastructure is able to support up to that number, although it's not probable.
Currently about 1.2 million tourists come in every month, but this excludes people coming in for business.
Therefore if you're looking at the current numbers, we may already have close to 7 million people in Singapore every month... Now.
There is one more factor not considered:
The number of M'sian workers travelling into S'pore in the morning to work, then going back in the evening.
I'm pretty sure this is quite a sizeable number too. While they do not stay overnight, they certainly use and strain our resources during the day (land, transport, food, etc).
So the glorified White Paper is missing tourists + transient workers.
The number that you're indicating is the same number of people who comes in for business. It need not be only Malaysia.
The infrastructure upgrade should take into account this number of people who are in Singapore consistently, monthly.
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