Pedestrians and shoppers cross Orchard Road shopping strip in Singapore
Retailers billed it as the Great Singapore Sale. Chinese tourist Zhu Liang bought it, only to regret afterward.
“We will never come here again to shop on purpose,” said Zhu, a 35-year-old businessman from Hangzhou. Visiting the city during the final days of the summer sale season in July, he purchased a Loewe handbag for his wife, only to discover he could have paid less in Hong Kong.
Behind the mark-up: a strengthening exchange rate, rising labor costs and a sales tax Chinese tourists don’t encounter in neighboring Hong Kong. A reduction in visitors from Asia’s largest economy contributed to a sales slide of as much as 4 percent in Singapore’s annual shopping festival, according to the retailers’ association.
Visitors from China to Singapore dropped 27 percent in the five months through May from a year earlier amid slower economic growth on the mainland and the impact of a new Chinese law that clamped down on cut-price shopping tours. Total tourist arrivals slid 1.7 percent, according to the Singapore Tourism Board. Read more.
