The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) signed a three-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Alibaba Group yesterday to drive visitor arrivals and spending. The scope of the MOU includes co-developing joint marketing campaigns and content, collaborating on inbound Chinese travellers analytics and insights, and creating more seamless and smart tourism experiences in Singapore.
Alibaba Group to help STB with insights into tourism and travel behaviour
The new MOU opens up new opportunities to expand STB’s collaborations with other businesses in the Alibaba ecosystem. Over the next three years, STB will work with key business units in the Alibaba ecosystem, such as Alipay, Fliggy, Youku, Damai and Alibaba Cloud, to engage Chinese visitors throughout the entire consumer journey and gain deeper insights into their travelling behaviour.
“STB is always on the lookout for partnerships with great industry partners to improve visitor experiences in Singapore. The partnership with Alibaba is a game changer for Singapore. With a single partner like Alibaba, we will for the first time be able to engage with visitors at every step of the consumer journey, from pre-arrival to post-visit, through Alibaba’s platforms and technologies,” said Mr Keith Tan, STB’s Chief Executive.
The latest partnership will kick off with a “Passion Made Possible Privileges” campaign, targeting Chinese visitors across the entire consumer journey, from pre-arrival research, to post-arrival recommendations right through to post-departure engagement, to keep them as fans and friends of Singapore. The three-year campaign aims to promote various tourism offerings and drive spend in Singapore in shopping, dining, hotels, sight-seeing, events and entertainment.
STB sign agreement with Southeast Asia’s largest technology company in the travel and lifestyle industry
Singapore Tourism Board and Traveloka, Southeast Asia’s largest technology company in the travel and lifestyle industry, have also signed a Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) to promote Singapore as a preferred destination for visitors from five major Southeast Asian markets: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
The MOC, which was signed at the sidelines of the Tourism Industry Conference 2019 in Singapore, will cover three broad areas – information sharing, marketing campaigns and content generation. This is the first strategic partnership between STB and Traveloka, and also the first time that STB is signing a pan-SEA partnership.
“STB’s partnership with Traveloka forms part of our overall strategy to better engage our visitors from our key markets. As more travel research and transactions shift online, STB will forge new partnerships with major online travel agents to better meet the expectations of visitors. We are pleased to work with Traveloka, which is a leading travel platform in the region, to promote Singapore as the preferred destination for travellers in Southeast Asia,” said Mr Keith Tan, STB’s Chief Executive, who represented STB at the MOC signing ceremony with Traveloka.
The cross-sharing of knowledge between STB and Traveloka is expected to generate new insights that will enable STB and Traveloka to target Southeast Asian travellers with more relevant products and experiences, as well as to enhance their overall experience in Singapore.