OK, I have not been able to blog as much as I promised due to a variety of reasons. So, here I go with my first post from Bangalore.
We flew to India on Singapore Airlines, and had a stopover of over 8 hours in Singapore. Since I had never been to Singapore, I took the free Singapore tour offered by the Singapore tourism. It was a good 1.5 hr long tour which takes you around the city (downtown, Chinatown, little India, etc.). What a great way to promote tourism. I was amazed by what they do for transit passengers passing through Singapore.
One thing I would have done to make it an even better tour was to add variety to let people taste Singapore with all their senses. I feel that they should offer a variety of packages (based on the transit time) so tourists can choose from these and enjoy Singapore to the fullest. For people with 5 hrs or more of transit time, they should offer a longer version of the tour which could include a boat ride in the river or the harbour area. For people with even more time, they could offer a tour that allows the passengers to get down at one of the shopping complexes, and shop as well as taste the local food offerings. They could also provide a tour with stops at the beach.
The variety is endless. The opportunities to promote tourism are limitless. Of course, there will be some challenges in implementing all these, but none are insurmountable.
The benefits to Singapore are enormous.