News from Singapore on October 4 Newsletter | From kitchen to alley, Singapore and Chinese tourists welcome Golden Week together

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In the kitchen of the "Coconut Club" in Singapore, the excitement brought by the National Day holiday in China is intuitively reflected by changes in chicken leg sales: during the Golden Week, chefs have to fry 30% more chicken legs than usual to meet customer needs.

In addition to chicken legs, more coconut milk, rice, and river fish fish fry need to be prepared than usual to support the coconut milk rice that locals and tourists love to eat. Xie Fulong, managing partner of the Coconut Club, is familiar with this rhythm. He said that every Spring Festival and around the National Day, the line at the door is always longer.

The shop has a very popular branch opened in Guangzhou. Traditional South Oceans shop houses scattered, the breadth of tea and the smell of Indian pancakes flooded, this multi-cultural blending neighborhood is the right place to walk in the city. The footsteps of tourists, also reflected in the growth of Singapore Tourism Bureau figures: Since the new mutual visa exemption in February 2024, China has become Singapore's largest guest source country. In the first eight months of this year, Singapore's Chinese tourists have accumulated 2.3 million times.

In order to seize the business opportunities of Golden Week, Singapore is actively stocking up to welcome guests from small restaurants to big shopping malls. Takashimaya Department Store in Orchard Road, the core business district, deployed more manpower in advance to strengthen service and security, and the inventory reserve of popular commodities increased significantly. Suga Jiaguiwen, deputy general manager of Takashimaya, Singapore, said that during the Spring Festival and Eleventh, the queues in front of the cashier and gift exchange desk will be longer, and the transaction volume and tax refund applications of shopping malls will also increase significantly.

ÝѼҹóÎÄ said that this year High Island House also prepared small events: tourists pay attention to the shopping mall account on the Red Book, you can get an environmental protection shopping bag.

Many businesspeople also felt the influence of social media. She Fu Long recalled that Chinese tourists told him at the beginning, ¡°You have a store fire.¡± Today, the coconut club is known by many netizens on Chinese social platforms such as Red Book as one of the best places to taste coconut rice in Singapore. He also accumulated more experience: this year, the store arranged more Chinese-speaking employees to work, and prepared Chinese menus.

On China's social platforms, many bloggers share tips on ordering and shopping in English in Singapore. In Singapore, more and more operators are also improving bilingual services. Before the National Day, Singapore's largest retail group, Parity Group, organized a group of non-Chinese employees at its Xilat convenience store to learn basic spoken Chinese, such as "Welcome to Singapore!"

The online platform Grab, which offers services such as car rental and sales, was also updated before the Golden Week: Chinese interface was more friendly, menu translations and airport maps were more complete. Grab news spokesman told reporters that during the eleventh, Grab network car demand will often increase, and we look forward to visiting Chinese tourists.

Payment services are also being upgraded. Recently, Parity Group expanded its Alipay payment service to more than 500 supermarkets, convenience stores, drugstores and food shops. At the end of September, Xila Convenience Store also launched a small program on Alipay. Vipur Jola, CEO of Parity Group, said that he hoped to "redefine the retail experience for Chinese tourists".

Merchants are busy preparing, and tourists arrive as scheduled. On October 1st, people lined up in front of the water arc spewed by the Merlion, in the giant tree hole in Forconning Park, and in front of the "rainbow" of 927 windows of different colors at the Old Jubilee Street Police Station to freeze this "Singapore Limited" in the camera.

However, the crowd is no longer just concentrated in the mainstream attractions of the city center. A couple ran to the lighthouse at the westernmost end of the island to take pictures of Malaysia, which is in sight of the sunrise. In the northeast corner of the White Sand Park, someone crossed the forest and looked at the Pacific Ocean, enjoying a quiet coastline alone.

Subramania Bart, founder of Singapore's market research firm Warkeys Marketing, said Chinese tourists' interest is ranging from the iconic attractions of "must play" to bookstores, cafes, spices markets, cooking lessons, forest walks, and even private restaurants hidden deep in the streets.

Singapore tourist writer Yoshida Yoshida has sympathy with him. He often takes a group along the way to tell historical stories and ecological landscapes. After visa-free travel, more and more Chinese tourists contacted him. Some followed him on a boat to the southern island of Singapore to see the "flood belt" - when the tide, the beach appears seaweed, sea stars and clowns. There are tourists who wrote a large section in the WeChat group, saying they didn't expect to have such an ecological experience in highly urbanized Singapore.

Some tourists no longer carefully plan the trip, but go for a day and go along the way from Zhejiang to Zhejiang. In the middle of the afternoon, the early Chinese people gathered in the "cars" and were attracted by the white signs of a bookstore. She went up the second floor along the walls filled with handwriting, sat on the couch on the wall for an hour, copied a piece of text on the wall and shared the bookstore on social platforms. She said that the bookstore's exhibition "really invites you to read a book" and hoped "the next time to Singapore, the bookstore is still!"

Bart said that Chinese tourists have discovered novel experiences on Xiaohongshu and Douyin, which makes travel not just punch in landmarks, but walk more in alleys, which also drives the business of small shops and repeat customers; At the same time, Chinese content creators will share small brands discovered in Singapore on domestic platforms, so that more people can know about these niche goods.

In addition to discovering surprises deep in the streets, this year, visitors can also catch up with an outdoors mid-Autumn lighting party. Many landmarks such as Carrots and water lighted the lights in September, people lifted up their mobile phones, and photographed the size of moon cakes, rabbits, guinea tree-shaped lights.

Many people may not know that behind these lanterns, there are a group of Chinese people who arrived in Singapore earlier than tourists. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, Spring Festival and other festivals, many lanterns on the streets of Singapore are made by craftsmen in Zigong, Sichuan, which is known as the "Lantern City", and Wan Qiang is one of them.

In early September, Wan Qiang had arrived in Singapore. During the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period, he was stationed in the Gardens by the Bay and had no time to visit scenic spots. When tourists from all over the world are busy taking photos, he and his colleagues are making every effort to ensure the safety of the lantern installation and ensure that it continues to light up stably until late at night.