The Tourism Sector in Singapore has suffered huge losses due to the Coronavirus outbreak. Travel Companies, Hotels, Tourist Attractions and many other businesses related to the sector have stopped operating and many people have been left without work.
As with many other government agencies in Singapore, the Singapore Tourism Board has launched a set of initiatives to support the sector during this difficult time but also to help position businesses better for recovery. This includes a number of online initiatives.
To further support tourism businesses during the circuit breaker, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has rolled out several new initiatives to help them engage their customers, strengthen their business foundations and deepen their manpower capabilities.
Tools to accelerate digital transformation
COVID-19 is changing consumer behaviour and will have a lasting impact on travel. To build resilience, STB has developed a set of tools to accelerate the tourism sector’s digital transformation:
STB will be launching the Tourism Transformation Index in the second quarter of 2020 to help businesses understand their current state of transformation.
It is a self-diagnostic tool for companies to assess their strengths, identify areas of opportunity and provide recommendations on next steps to take in their digital transformation journey.
The Singapore Tourism Board will open the ThreeHouse, a dedicated innovation space located on STB’s premises for companies to collaborate and test new ideas and solutions.
The Board has created a suite of smart services that allow businesses to tap shared data and content – to drive innovation and guide their business decisions.
This includes the Singapore Tourism Analytics Network, or Stan, which is being made available to the industry for the first time. Through Stan, industry stakeholders can access updated tourism statistics, and exchange data – all of which will prove useful as they start to plan for recovery.
Online training for tourism sector to upskill workers
To help affected businesses rethink their strategies and prepare for recovery, STB Marketing College has partnered key digital players such as Facebook, Google and LinkedIn to develop web-based training for the tourism industry.
The STB Marketing College is a learning and development programme tailored for marketing professionals in the travel and tourism industry. The STB Marketing College team is working with key digital partners to roll out online training resources to help the tourism industry upskill during the COVID-19 period.
Facebook Singapore, for example, has produced a webinar series that targets businesses in the travel, hospitality, retail, and BTMICE sectors. In this series, experts will share business insights and best practices to engage customers and help businesses adapt during these challenging times. The first episode will be streamed on 30 April 2020.
STB is also supporting Google and UOB in their redesign of the SME Leadership Academy programme to focus on small-and-medium enterprises in retail and tourism. The online programme will cover topics including digital marketing, online collaboration tools to support remote working and overseas market expansion efforts.