SINGAPORE, March 5 — Visitor arrivals in Singapore are expected to rise 20-30 per cent to 11.5-12.5 million this year, helped by a pickup in the global economy and the draw of the city-state’s new casinos, the government said today.

Singapore Tourism Board (STB) CEO Aw Kah Peng told a tourism industry conference she expects tourism revenue to rise 41-50 per cent from 2009 to S$17.5-S$18.5 billion.

“This is hugely, hugely ambitious,” she acknowledged, but said she was hoping the final result could outperform the forecast.

In January, Singapore saw a 17.6 per cent rise in visitor arrivals from a year earlier. — Reuters

KUALA LUMPUR: RHB Research Institute has revised its FY10 forecasts downwards by 3.1% for Genting Singapore to push its projected contribution from the Universal Studios Singapore theme park back by 1.5 months to beginning May (from beginning March).

It said on Monday, March 8 that although the the Universal Studios Singapore theme park opens in mid-March, it is discounting the first six weeks of operations to be conservative, given the gradual ramping up of ticket sales and ongoing technical adjustments.

"We continue to highlight a potential for earnings upgrade in our forecasts via: (1) higher revenue per patron due to management's casino target market of "above average" patrons versus our assumption which is based on a VIP:mass split of 50:50; and (2) longer-than-expected casino monopoly in Singapore should Marina Bay Sands open later than April," it said.

It said there was no change to its S$1.35 fair value, based on blended average of EV/EBITDA (12 times FY11 based on regional average) and DCF methodologies. Maintain Outperform.

Universal Studios Singapore theme park is set to open on March 18. Following the sneak peek weeks during the Chinese New Year period, it will first open the park to team members of Resorts World Singapore (RWS) and their families on March 13 for one week as part of its staff appreciation perks, before opening to the public.

Ticket sales for the opening phase will begin on March 10 and same day tickets are not available, while there will be some tickets set aside for hotel guests on
a first-come-first-served basis during this soft opening period.

RHB Research said the management had highlighted however, that this was a progressive soft opening for Universal Studios Singapore theme park, not unlike the casino, which means that limited tickets will be sold and that it is possible that certain attractions may become temporarily unavailable as it continues its technical and creative adjustments during this period.

To compensate for this, ticket prices will be partially rebated by shopping and dining vouchers valid for use at the theme park. There was no mention as to how long this preview/soft openingh phase will last except to say that it will end when RWS is satisfied that the park is ready.

"Nevertheless, we understand that on the first day Universal Studios Singapore only intends to sell 3,000 tickets, versus its full capacity of 30,000, but would gradually ramp up the number of tickets sold over the next two to three months, with the jump between each stage of capacity to be relatively large (for eg: from 3,000 to 10,000 tickets)," it said.

hope it dun end up like LCL who are venturing into fishing at one time and failed.

BreT, how to see the annoucement, my stock trading panel do not support sg annoucement.

what happen to g13 , suddenly shoot up so fast?

can anyone share link on checking the latest news on singapore stock? Beside SGX.com of course.

given a choice to invest in GSP or GHK for long term, which one will you choose?

waiting for GENSP to crash, so i can accumulate more

I also asked this question long time ago, but not at 2.23 but at 1.26. I never looked back since.

buy if u want to hold for at least 1 year , I forseen there will be a mild correction soon

This post has been edited by jasonkwk: Oct 22 2010, 03:52 PM

China Gaoxian can keep long term?

what do u mean by that?

who is selling G13 today until drop until like that?

bought some genting Hk today

what happen to golden agri. today ? shoot up so fast

hope GHK will be like his big brother GSP.. shot up !

as expected, G13 lao sai now,what is the best price to buy back?

BB is pushing down the price of GSP, they want to force small retailer to throw off their share to them?

S$96m 'lost' in Singapore

Tue, Nov 23, 2010
New Straits Times

JOHOR BARU, Malaysia - It is estimated that Malaysians gamble away about RM230 million (S$96 million) a month at the two newly opened casinos in Singapore.

The estimate was given by MCA national organising secretary Tee Siew Kiong, who derived it from the average busloads and carloads of people who were making a beeline for the Resort World Sentosa (RWS) and Marina Bay Sands (MBS) casinos that opened their doors last February and June respectively.

He said at least 3,200 people crossed over in buses or cars to gamble in the republic daily.

The Pulai Sebatang state assemblyman estimated that about 30 bus trips of 40 passengers each; and 500 cars comprising four people each cross over daily.

Considering each of the 3,200 Malaysian gamblers spend an average of S$1,000 (RM2,400), he said that would mean a total of RM7.68 million was gambled away at the republic daily, or about RM230 million monthly.

"Talking about yearly average, it would be RM2.76 billion. This is stunning!

"Then again, S$1,000 per person is just a conservative figure.

"With more perks given by the casinos to encourage our people to gamble there, I believe the daily number of gamblers will grow by leaps and bound in the near future," he said in an interview.

Among the perks given by the casinos were free meal vouchers and free return trip for those who bought a minimum token of RM240 to gamble.

Transport operators also benefit. They get an incentive of RM900 for bringing in a busload of passengers to the casinos.

Hong Kong-based research house CLSA expects RWS to report a third quarter revenue of RM1.8 billion compared with RM2 billion in the second quarter.

MBS reported a net revenue of RM1.5 billion in its first quarter of operation ended Sept 30.

Tee expressed worry that uncontrolled gambling may trigger a series of problems such as broken families, bankruptcy and loan shark activities.

Malaysia Tourist Guide Council president Jimmy Leong said the special incentives offered to ferry Malaysians to the Singapore casinos would prompt bus operators to prefer serving the interest of the Singapore tourism industry.