Mastercard and Singapore Tourism Board to create joint marketing

The Singapore Tourism Board and Mastercard are teaming up to take on the challenges facing destination tourism in the city-state with a new partnership to improve visitor experiences.

Under the agreement, "the partners will identify opportunities to work together on joint marketing and advertising campaigns that will drive visitorship to Singapore’s tourism offerings, as Singapore prepares for the gradual return of international visitors," a joint press release stated.

The partnership, under Mastercard's City Possible program, also includes a range of other collaborations to address challenges faced by Singapore's tourism industry that includes new joint technologies and sharing data such as spending patterns to help the sector pivot to new audiences and improve the visiting experience for post-Covid travellers.

More specifically, the partners will work together with dedicating resources from Mastercard’s Singapore-based Labs team on jointly enhancing STB’s Visit Singapore Pass (VSP)1 to provide more contactless ticketing and payments for tourism offerings.  

"This partnership places Singapore and STB on the path to becoming a global lab for solutions and pilots, creating travel experiences that are safe, yet personalised to the needs of our visitors,” said STB chief executive Keith Tan. 

The partners say tourism contributed 4% of Singapore’s annual GDP last year with over 19 million visitors, but the sector now faces a 60%+ drop in revenue and employment. 

“The way we live, work, travel and consume has undergone rapid changes due to the pandemic," said Ari Sarker, Asia-Pacific co-president at Mastercard. "There is an urgent need for public and private sector players to work together to identify the best strategies for all industries to digitize, be flexible, and agile in efforts to keep up with new consumer demands."