By Glenys Smith New Straits  Times 12 July, 2004  

Taking advantage of the special offers and discounts of the Great Singapore Sale, visitors to the country splurged more than $85 million at the shops last month.

This is about 80 per cent more than they did in the same period last year, and more than double what they spent in 2002.

Goods and services tax (GST) refund agency Global Refund Singapore said the top buys were watches, womenswear and jewellery.

Tourists' shopping sprees here resulted in total GST refunds rising by 135 per cent over June last year. It was 93 per cent more than June 2002's. The refunds are an alternative indicator of spending patterns.

The tax went up one percentage point to 5 per cent on Jan 1. It rose to 4 per cent in January last year. Before that, it was 3 per cent.

About half of what visitors spend here generally goes on shopping. In 2002, this was $2.86 billion.

The refund agency could not offer a breakdown of the amount spent by nationality, but said the biggest spenders were from Indonesia, India and Japan, in that order.

Indonesians have been Singapore's top sale shoppers since 2001, and this year the Singapore Tourism Board made a special effort to woo them.

It held press conferences on the event in Jakarta and Medan in May, and ran advertisements in many of the country's major daily newspapers.

Indonesians were not the only ones targeted by the board. So were shoppers from 13 other countries, including Vietnam, New Zealand and Singaporeans' own popular shopping destination, Thailand.

Special tour packages, including air fare, accommodation, shopping, spa discounts, and food and beverage offers, were put together.

More than 43,000 packages have been sold so far, 3,000 short of the target the STB set itself before the sale's start, and 67 per cent more than the number in 2002.

The STB's director for tourism shopping, Ms Sulian-Tan Wijaya, said: 'In general, the packages comprise hotel stay, flight and giveaways. The promotional activities and giveaways vary as they depend on the preferences of the target market.'

In South Korea, for instance, where the target has been high-spending women, sale advertisements featured high-end labels, like Coach and Anteprima, and the shopping centres which sell them, such as Ngee Ann City and Paragon.

Thais who picked up an STB sale package received hold-alls, the Filipinos 'jelly' bags and the Japanese spa discounts.

Word of the worth of the sale appears to be spreading.

The number of people who visited between May 28, when the event began, and June 28 hit about 720,000, 13 per cent up on the same period in 2002 and 2001. Last year's arrivals were unusually low, mainly because of Sars.

This year's sale, the 11th to be held, is running for eight weeks, a fortnight longer than usual. It will end on July 25.