The tourism industry worldwide has taken the biggest hit due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This has posed a huge risk of job loss worldwide affecting millions of people directly and indirectly employed by the sector. Many governments worldwide have started rolling out support packages for the industry to minimise the job loss and revive their economy.
Let’s have a look at what these countries are doing to revive their tourism industry.
1SINGAPORE
Singapore had recently come up with a Resilience Budget to support its economy and businesses.
Here are the Key Highlights from the budget concerning the tourism Industry
- Singapore Government has committed a total of S$440 million (USD $305 million) to help the tourism industry with critical operating costs.
- The budget includes full property tax waivers for rest of 2020
- Under the enhanced Job Support Scheme (JSS), the government will co-fund the first $4,600 of wages of every local employee for nine months, by 75 percent for aviation and tourism firms, by 50 percent for F&B firms, and 25 percent for other sectors.
- A fund of S$20 million marketing partnership fund has been set up by the Singapore Tourism Board, to help tourism businesses maintain their international presence.
- A programme to support qualified marketing costs has been increased from 50 percent to 70 percent and will include attractions, inbound travel agents, and the corporate sector, in addition to the original plan for hotels only.
- Singapore Tourism Board has launched the SG Stories Content Fund to encourage and support local and international content creators to create compelling stories of strength, resilience, solidarity, and unity in Singapore.
- The S$2 million fund for digital video content will cover the costs of creative development and conceptualisation, production and execution, as well as marketing and distribution. The fund will support 90 percent of qualifying costs, capped at S$150,000 per project
Source: Singapore Budget & TTG Asia
