Singapore’s Old-School Travel Agencies Struggle While Innovators Thrive
Photo Credit: Some long-established travel agencies in Singapore have recently folded, but other companies are finding success by adapting to changing traveler behavior. Singapore's Marina Bay is pictured. Flickr / Mac Qin
Skift Take
Over 100 travel agencies have ceased operations in Singapore in the first six months of the year. But a closer look shows the trade is not dying; it is renewing.
Editor's Note: Skift launched a series, Gateway, as we broaden our news coverage geographically with first-hand, original stories from correspondents embedded in cities around the world.
We started with regular reports several times per month from tourism hubs Beijing, Singapore and Capetown. Gateway Beijing and Gateway Singapore, for example, signify that the reporters are writing from those cities although their coverage of the business of travel will meander to other locales in their regions. Read about the series here, and check out all the stories in the series here.
While it may seem that travel agencies are dropping like flies in hot and humid Singapore, the trade is far from languishing, although it is not without challenges.
Figures from the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), which oversees the sector, show the total number of agencies has remained constant in the past few years at around 1,200, as has the rate of new agencies opening and exiting.
The 104 agencies th
