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ingapore aims to host many more business events for Indonesian business people as it still sees enormous room for growth.

Only one-fifth of around 3.02 million Indonesian visitors to the island city-state last year came for meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (MICE), according to Michele Wooi Shen-li, the Singapore Tourism Board'€™s (STB) area director for Indonesia.

Business visitors from Southeast Asia'€™s biggest economy represent 15 to 20 percent of Singapore'€™s overall MICE travelers, who normally spend more cash than those coming only for leisure.

'€œThis is a very important group of visitors for us and we believe there are more who will come for MICE,'€ Shen-li said on the sidelines of a breaking-of-the-fast gathering on Thursday.

To boost the tourism sector, particularly MICE, the board offers a variety of incentives for visitors through the Singapore MICE Advantage Program (SMAP), which provides benefits for large groups consisting of a minimum of 100 persons.

In addition to this, it also gives financial support for events that feature Singaporean culture and assistance to foreign business people who want to set up networks with the Singaporean government, business groups, business partners, or suppliers.

Shen-li said that to push up the number of Indonesian visitors who come for business purposes, STB specifically invited local industries to take part in Singapore'€™s events, such as the Singapore Media Festival and Singapore Design Week. Furthermore, it also teamed up with Indonesian travel agents to arrange travel incentives.

Singapore, a regional and global business hub, welcomed 15.6 million visitor arrivals in 2013, 22.44 percent of whom were related to MICE or business purposes, according to the board'€™s statistics.

MICE and business visits contributed S$5.5 billion, or 23.4 percent, to the country'€™s tourism revenue of S$23.5 billion (US$17.43 billion) throughout that year.

However, despite the increase of Singapore'€™s tourism income last year, the contribution of MICE visits dwindled.

Visitors for business events only gave S$5.8 billion, or 20 percent, to the country'€™s S$29 billion tourism receipts in 2014.

'€œThis year is a challenging year for us. If we can strive to achieve a small percentage of growth or maintain last year'€™s numbers, it will be good for us,'€ Shen-li said.

The tourism industry is the backbone of Singapore'€™s economy, which despite growing faster in the first quarter by 2.6 percent than in the previous quarter, saw the number of visitor arrivals fall, according to The Strait Times.

Effendy Dharmawan, the director of PT Dwidaya World Wide that runs travel agency Dwidaya Tour, said that the firm'€™s partnership with foreign countries'€™ tourism boards, including that of Singapore, had been part of its strategy to boost MICE travel by way of getting convenient deals for hotels and tourist attractions.

'€œWe booked 46 percent growth in our MICE business last year. We target 45 percent for this year and so far we have achieved our first-half target,'€ he said, declining to elaborate on the revenues.

He said Indonesia'€™s slower-than-expected economic growth had yet to affect his business since many of its clients had already booked trips since last year.

The firm served 300 to 400 companies last year, whose groups consisted of 30 to 1,500 persons. (prm)