(Yicai) March 19 -- The number of Chinese tourists visiting Singapore surged eight-fold in February from a year earlier, thanks to the implementation of a mutual visa-free policy.

Some 327,000 Chinese tourists visited Singapore last month, accounting for nearly 23 percent of the total and making China Singapore's top inbound tourist source, according to data from the Singapore Tourism Board. Chinese tourists spent 4.2 days in the Southeast Asian country on average, the higher among international tourists.

China and Singapore signed an agreement on Jan. 25, officially granting visa-free entry to each other's citizens from Feb. 9.

The mutual visa exemption between China and Singapore is conducive to bilateral personnel exchanges, tourism, economic and trade development, and civil exchanges, Zhou Shixin, director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, told Yicai.

Singapore is also betting on music concerts to boost inbound tourism. The country hosted a Coldplay concert in January and Taylor Swift's Eras Tour earlier this month, and it will hold concerts by Bruno Mars and South Korean singer IU in April.

At least 40 percent of concert spectators are overseas tourists who stay an average of four days, according to data from Japanese brokerage Nomura. The shows of Coldplay and Taylor Swift may drive Singapore's gross domestic product to grow 0.25 percentage point in the first quarter of the year, with the hospitality, food and beverage, and retail industries benefiting the most.

Singapore is expected to receive 15 million to 16 million overseas tourists this year, recovering to 80 percent of the level before the Covid-19 pandemic, the STB predicted. International tourism may bring about SGD26 billion to SGD27.5 billion (USD19.4 billion to USD20.5 billion) in tourism revenue to Singapore this year.

Singaporean citizens are also enthusiastic about traveling to China as flights between the two countries have recovered to over 90 percent of the pre-pandemic level, and the Chinese yuan has weakened.

Travel packages to China signed by Singaporean travel agencies at a travel fair early this month accounted for nearly 70 percent of the total outbound tourism.

Editor: Futura Costaglione