Rising tourism demand and surging visitor arrivals are fueling a wave of new hotel development in Singapore.
Even as new hotels open their doors, Singapore's legacy resorts are retooling with major renovations to adapt to growing demand for hospitality accommodations at every price point.
Hotels in the city-state have rebounded significantly in the years since the COVID-19 pandemic and have helped Singapore cement its reputation as a safe and vibrant top-tier destination for events, leisure and business.
In January 2024, Singapore hosted Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres World Tour and Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, with both acts playing six shows each. Combined, the concerts sold more than 500,000 tickets, with half of those purchased by overseas audience participants, according to the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Macroeconomic Review published in April. The Eras Tour alone accounted for 90.8% hotel occupancy in Singapore across its six nights, according to CoStar hospitality data.
The Singapore Hotel Association has 168 member hotels and continues to work closely with government agencies to roll out industry initiatives to support Singapore's hospitality industry, said Margaret Heng, executive director of the Singapore Hotel Association.
She added it's encouraging to see visitor numbers to Singapore steadily increase.
“It is heartening to note that the industry has been recovering well, and barring any unforeseen circumstances, it is on track to meet [our] projected visitor arrivals of 15 million to 16.5 million for [2024],” Heng said.
A total of 13.6 million tourists visited Singapore in 2023.
The rise in tourism demand has translated into hotel performance boosts across Singapore's hospitality industry. Average daily rate reached 324.34 Singapore dollars (US$237.09) in full-year 2023, while revenue per available room reached 245.19 Singapore dollars, according to CoStar hospitality data. In 2024 — year to date through November — Singapore hotel ADR was 321.76 Singapore dollars and RevPAR was 251.8 Singapore dollars. Both years exceeded performance levels from 2019.
Sustainable development
The industry’s rebound from the pandemic has been marked by the launch of new properties, extensive refurbishments, the reimagining of hotel offerings such as wellness-centric services and hybrid spaces that blend leisure and business travel and other industry initiatives.
Key openings in 2024 included the 989-room Mercure ICON Singapore City Center; the 48-room 21 Carpenter; the 250-room Citadines Science Park Singapore, and the 143-room The Standard, Singapore.
Hotel development in Singapore has embraced a fusion of modern luxury and prioritized sustainability, energy-efficient technologies and green certification. New eco-conscious hotels such as the 142-room Artyzen, 343-room Pan Pacific Orchard and 204-room Singapore Edition highlight the island’s emphasis on integrating urban design with greenery, reflecting its reputation as Asia's greenest city.
Singapore’s Hotel Industry Transformation Map 2025 is instrumental to this emphasis on sustainable hotel development, Heng said. Its goal is to create a compelling, innovative and sustainable hotel industry by focusing on areas such as workforce development, digitalization and sustainability, with its ultimate objective being to consolidate the city’s position as a global tourism and business hub. Key goals include achieving real value-added growth of 5.9% from 2020 to 2025 and addressing workforce skills in meeting new guest demands.
Hotels that have undergone major transformation in 2024 include the 699-key Grand Hyatt Singapore, reopened in July after two years of renovations, and the 389-key Amara Singapore, which opened in the last quarter of 2024.
Singapore's established resorts
Singapore’s integrated resorts are upgrading, too, with renovation work estimated at $1.75 billion on the iconic Marina Bay Sands. November marked the completion of the resort’s Paiza Collection, a three-tower hotel addition with suites and butler service.
“From inception, Marina Bay Sands had a forward-looking vision, designed to reshape the tourism landscape of Singapore,” said Paul Town, Marina Bay Sands’ chief operating officer. “Since our opening in 2020, we have defied expectations time and time again, and become one of the most successful integrated resorts in the world.”
He said the next stage of the resort's development is another major transformation.
Work on refurbishing the resort's Sands Collection offerings is to see its first phase due to be completed by the second quarter of 2025.
Then, construction will commence on the Marina Bay Sands' Tower 4 in June, with an estimated completion in 2030 at a separate cost of more than $8 billion, a 77% increase from the initially reported budget of $3.3 billion, according to Channel News Asia.
Dubbed “Marina Bay Sands IR2,” the expansion project will add 570 suites, a 15,000-seat entertainment arena, numerous food-and-beverage offerings, and meetings, incentives, conventions and expositions facilities.
On Singapore's Sentosa Island, Resorts World Sentosa broke ground in November on its new $5 billion waterfront lifestyle development designed to rejuvenate Singapore’s Greater Southern Waterfront, a major urban redevelopment project set to transform the southern coastline by 2030. Two new luxury hotels will have a total room count of 700.
New hotel openings for 2025 include the 338-room Mandai Rainforest Resort by Banyan Tree, 62-room Raffles Sentosa Singapore and the 475-room Moxy Singapore Clarke Quay.
Cavaliere Giovanni Viterale, cluster general manager of the Raffles Sentosa Singapore and Sofitel Singapore Sentosa Resort & Spa, said despite Singapore’s increased hotel inventory, his hotels have seen an upside to business.
“We will continue to focus on efforts to reach out to new and potential markets and also forge partnerships,” he said.
Viterale said much effort is being made to continue with sustainability initiatives that involve guests, partners and the community.
“We will also leverage AI and data to improve productivity and customer experience and provide upskilling opportunities [for staff],” he added.