New Walking Tours launched in Singapore

The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) today applauded the launch of "The Original Singapore Walks" and "War Trails" by home-grown company, Journeys Pte Ltd. These innovative walks and coach tours aim to showcase the lesser known but no less fascinating aspects of Singapore's multicultural heritage, some of which may even be new to many locals.

Similar to the London Walks in the United Kingdom, these walks will enable visitors to discover Singapore's natural, cultural and historical sites and historic heritage. The walks are conducted by licensed Tourists Guides, who  will offer in-depth knowledge and share insightful perspectives on historic sites such as Chinatown, Little India, Kampong Glam, Fort Canning and the Singapore River.

Journeys' Director, Mr Jeyathurai said: "Journeys is dedicated to revealing to the world the depth of Singapore's rich heritage and colourful history. We intend to excite people about Singapore and to do it through innovative ways such as 'The Original Singapore Walks'."

Riding on this wave of creativity and innovation exemplified by Journeys' new product, the STB announced two changes that will encourage creativity, entrepreneurship and vibrancy within the Tourist Guide sector to promote the development of exciting and memorable tourism experiences for visitors.

The first is the introduction of a Specialised Guide license to encourage qualified and passionate professionals to conduct tours in areas where they enjoy expert domain knowledge. These areas will include architecture, the arts, food, heritage and even nature. To facilitate this, STB will put in place a streamlined assessment system that will essentially require aspiring Specialised Tourist Guides to submit their proposed itinerary and conduct a preview tour before they can be licensed.

In the second change, STB has reviewed the Travel Agents Act and Regulations to allow all licensed Tourist Guides (including Specialised Guides) to provide innovative tours and to work directly with transport owners to offer one mode of land transportation for visitors, which they were not allowed to do so previously. Presently, Tourist Guides are only allowed to work with travel agents or to establish their own travel agent operations in order to provide tours. As travel agents, Tourist Guides will be subjected to onerous legislative requirements such as putting up a minimum paid-up capital of S$100,000. With this change, Tourist Guides will now have greater flexibility in developing their business models.

Tourist Guides will now be able to offer an antique tour or a Peranakan heritage tour as walking tours on their own or in collaboration with a coach operator directly. Through this liberalisation effort, STB expects Tourist Guides to be more forthcoming in providing a wider spectrum of tour products and initiatives.

Commenting on the new initiatives, Mr Lim Neo Chian, Deputy Chairman and Chief Executive of STB said:

"In order to maintain our position as a choice destination for tourists, we have to constantly create new and exciting tourism products and programmes so that tourists will never have a dull moment in Singapore. The new initiatives will help to facilitate growth as more Tourist Guides and enterprising individuals come forth with more creative ideas and offerings. The introduction of these initiatives is timely as visitor arrivals are already starting to show signs of improvement."

Mr Lim added: "The introduction of the Specialised Guide category and allowing licensed Tourist Guides to work with land transport owners to provide tours coupled with a mode of land transportation will reap long term  benefits for the local tourism industry as it will encourage greater creativity. It also presents an array of opportunities for budding entrepreneurs to propose and develop niche tourism products. For the tourism industry to develop, we have to move away from the homogenous environment that we are used to and explore various opportunities and ideas. Journeys Pte Ltd is an excellent example of a travel agent who strives to be different. We hope that more Singaporeans will follow in their footsteps in the coming months."

STB hopes that the new initiatives will create a buzz and inject more vitality as well as attract more qualified individuals with a great passion for tourism to join the industry. Interested individuals with the relevant professional qualification or working experience may be licensed by the STB to provide guiding services.