Singapore gears up for Christmas Season

Singapore's annual Christmas Light-Up is a major draw for overseas visitors. A survey by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) conducted during the Light-Up in 2001, shows that 52 per cent of visitors to Singapore (from mid-November to December 2001) cited the Christmas Light-Up as one of the reasons motivating their trips to the Republic. A third of the respondents were actually on repeat visits to Singapore.

The Christmas Light-Up is now in its 19th year and has become entrenched as one of the year-end activities to look forward to - both for residents and visitors.

Each year, the challenge for the STB is to find creative and cost-effective ways to make the Christmas Light-Up more appealing and unique. This year, the search ends with Rainbow Rhapsody which uses hundreds of energy saving fibre optical lights to create a symphony of colours over Orchard, Scotts and Tanglin roads. These bright lights will change colours, and form rainbow hues across Singapore's most famous shopping street. In addition to these fibre optical lights, there will be blinking strobe lights, and sparkling ornaments strung from trees, which will create a spectacular visual composition of light and colour.

For the first time, the pedestrian walkway along Orchard Road, from the junction of Scotts Road to Ngee Ann City, will be converted into a Christmas Walk, interspersed with red and green arches and roadside stalls peddling Christmas memorabilia. The Christmas Walk will also be an open stage for carolers, buskers and other performances to bring the festive spirit to visitors to Orchard Road.

The fun starts on November 16, when President SR Nathan switches on the lights at the official Christmas Light-Up ceremony at Civic Plaza, Ngee Ann City. Thereafter, it will be seven weeks of Rainbow Rhapsody with lots of Yuletide frolic. During this period, the lights will be switched on every night from 7pm to midnight until January 5. The Light-Up will be extended to 2am on Fridays and Saturdays, and 6am on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve.

STB's Director of Events Marketing, Mr Lim Chwee Seng says Singapore's Christmas Light-Up is one of the best in the world.

"The year-end period has traditionally offered more events for visitors to enjoy, and the Christmas Light-Up is certainly a key highlight, especially since Orchard Road itself is the top free access attraction in Singapore. Now into the 19th year, the annual Light-Up has become firmly established as a year-end spectacle that tourists and locals have come to look forward to, very much like the ones in Tokyo, Hong Kong and London's Regent Street."

Co-organised by STB and National Council of Social Services (NCSS), the Christmas Light-Up also has a charity element. Every year, Hitachi - which has been sponsoring the event since 1991 - dedicates a part of the sponsorship funds directly to charity. Since 1991, Hitachi's fund raising efforts have resulted in more than $3 million raised for the beneficiaries of Community Chest (the fundraising arm of NCSS).

Hitachi's Managing Director, Mr Takashi Muraki says: "At Hitachi, we believe strongly in our corporate statement, 'Inspire the Next' which sets the tone for creating a richer life and a better society. In good times and bad, we constantly strive to ensure that our responsibilities extend beyond our business investments to encompass and enrich the lives of those around us."

Christmas Light-Up is one of the events under STB's Celebration Singapore extravaganza that comprises four months of festivals, parties and parades.