Effective timing of tourism policy: The case of Singapore

In this paper, we examine the effective timing of economic policies actions in the tourism industry of a small open economy such as Singapore. The effective timing of policy actions is an open challenge issue to researchers and also a much needed rule of thumb to policy makers and private agents. This paper aims to (a) derive the influencing factors of a tourism demand function and (b) identify the time impact of these factors, thus, allowing the formulations of effective policy actions, by both, governmental tourism authorities and private tourism agents in Singapore. Our findings suggest that tourism government authorities and private tourism agents in Singapore should choose the timing of their actions depending upon the anticipated factor changes and their estimated impact. That is, if exchange rate variability is anticipated then policy actions should start at least twelve months prior to the start of the tourist period. If, a keen price competition is expected to prevail then the best timing of policy actions is nine months ahead the tourism period. If income improvements in origin countries could be expected, then a rather shorter timing action of six months would be available to tourism authorities and private agents in Singapore.