I took a look at the full report and to put things simply, it's a numbers game. Travel took up close to half of Singapore's Gross Merchandise value (GMV) in 2019 (5.7 out of 12 billion), and with all forms of travel coming to a halt this year, you can imagine the toll it takes on our Internet economy.
Percentage wise, Singapore's eCommerce industry faced the largest surge among our SEA counterparts - Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia, with a 88% increase in GMV (amounting to nearly $2bil in value). Unfortunately, that was still insufficient to cover the 70% fall in air travel (amounts to $4 bil). The decline in air travel GMV in Singapore was the steepest among our SEA counterparts. To begin with, Singapore's tourism industry is significantly larger than some of these counterparts. Furthermore, majority of our tourism industry is supported by foreign tourists, which explains why we were so badly hit. As much as the Singapore government is actively promoting local tourism, there is only so much that can be done, as compared to larger nations like Thailand, where citizens can have cross-state vacations in the same country.
Here's the final report if anyone's interested: https://www.bain.com/globalassets/noindex/2020/... Thanks for the question; twas an interesting one :)
I took a look at the full report and to put things simply, it's a numbers game. Travel took up close to half of Singapore's Gross Merchandise value (GMV) in 2019 (5.7 out of 12 billion), and with all forms of travel coming to a halt this year, you can imagine the toll it takes on our Internet economy.
Percentage wise, Singapore's eCommerce industry faced the largest surge among our SEA counterparts - Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia, with a 88% increase in GMV (amounting to nearly $2bil in value). Unfortunately, that was still insufficient to cover the 70% fall in air travel (amounts to $4 bil). The decline in air travel GMV in Singapore was the steepest among our SEA counterparts. To begin with, Singapore's tourism industry is significantly larger than some of these counterparts. Furthermore, majority of our tourism industry is supported by foreign tourists, which explains why we were so badly hit. As much as the Singapore government is actively promoting local tourism, there is only so much that can be done, as compared to larger nations like Thailand, where citizens can have cross-state vacations in the same country.
Here's the final report if anyone's interested: https://www.bain.com/globalassets/noindex/2020/... Thanks for the question; twas an interesting one :)