Singapore Hotels Blog - News and Information

One of Asia’s most established trade event for the infocomm and media industries, CommunicAsia 2009, will be held in Singapore Expo from June 16 2009 to June 19 2009.  It will also be held in conjunction with EnterpriseIT2009, InteractiveDME, BroadcastAsia2009.

This huge international trade show has attracted more than 32,000 overseas attendees in 2008, and similar numbers are expected to visit the show despite the global economic downturn.

Visitors and exhibitors from all over the world are expected to be present at the event, including visitors from Australia, Belgium, Brunei, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Sweden, Taiwan, United Kingdom, USA, Vietnam, not to mention from host country Singapor.

The event highlights includes PTV/Mobile Entertainment, WiMAX and a host of other innovative products, services and ideas, presented by thousands of exhibiting companies from over 60 countries/regions.

The event is being held at Singapore Expo, which is on the eastern part of Singapore.  As there are no hotels which are nearby the venue, visitors to the event would need to plan the journey properly to minimize unnecessary delays in the traveling time.

Singapore has one of the best public transport infrastructure in the world, as such, you have many options to reach the event venue.  If you are traveling by train (MRT or Mass Rapid Transit), alight at Expo Station (East Bound line).  This is the station which serves Singapore Expo, once you reach there you will be able to access the various halls via covered walkways.  If you are traveling from various parts of Singapore towards the station, make sure you alight at the Tanah Merah station (on the East West Line) and transfer to the train heading to Expo Station.  It is not necessary to do any transfer if you are traveling from Changi International Airport train station.

You can also travel by taxis/cabs, which is also freely available at the event venue for your return trip.

If you wish to travel by bus, you should take bus nos. 12, 24, 38, which will alight you besides carpark G on Upper Changi Road East or outside Hall 1 on Upper Changi Road East.  You can also take bus nos. 35, which you can alight beside Carpark J on Xilin Avenue

As large number of overseas visitors are expected, you are strongly urged to make reservations for your accommodation immediately after you confirm your visit.

Hotel room rates for CommunicAsia 2009 in Singapore ranges from S$115 upwards, which is very reasonable for high seasonal convention periods.  Nearest Singapore hotels to Singapore Expo would be those around Changi,  East Coast and Joo Chiat.  However these areas are not served by trains (MRT), so you will need to take the cabs/taxis.

You should consider hotels in other areas as well if you intend to make visits to other places besides the exhibition area.

If you are visiting Singapore for the Singtel Formula 1 Grand Prix come September 2009, you would be interested to know that The Ministry of Trade and Industry, and Singapore Tourism Board have reduced the Formula One levy on hotel rooms to a four night period.

The levy will be in effect from September 24 2009 to September 27 2009.  There are thirteen (13) hotels which has been designated as “trackside hotels”.  These hotels will have a 30 per cent levy on their total revenue.  All other tourist hotels will have a 20 per cent levey on their total revenue.

The trackside hotels includes the following hotels:

Carlton Hotel, Conrad Centennial Singapore, Fairmont Singapore, Grand Parkk City Hall, Mandarin Oriental Singapore, Marina Mandarin, Naumi, Peninsula Excelsior Hotel, Raffles Hotel, Swissotel the Stamford, The Fullerton Hotel, The Pan Pacific Hotel, The Ritz-Carlton Millennia Singapore.

If you are visiting Singapore for the Formula 1 race, you may wish to take note hotels in Singapore during that period will generally be higher and occupancy are expected to be very high.  It is highly recommended you make the bookings for your Singapore hotels earlier, as soon as you obtain your air tickets if possible.

For the past few years, prices of hotel rooms in Singapore has been sky rocketing. Whatever it was reported in the news extra isn’t exactly the truth.  Official figures are often misleading and visitors who visit Singapore regularly on business or for leisure will know this.

For example, a room at Hotel Rendezvous was around $150 per room per night back in 2003. It rose to almost $250 in beginning 2008, hitting as high as $300 in last quarter of 2008.

What hotels in Singapore didnt realized was there is a pending downturn, in fact a huge downturn coming up. Due to the economic crisis which start hitting Singapore in the mid of third quarter and last quarter of 2008, hotels faced a sharp drop in their occupancy rates, and didn’t really smarten up till now.

Hotels are still trying to put up a strong false front, but it just could not last long. There is just not enough visitors going to Singapore. Comments like “We are still experiencing high occupancy” was seen at news late 2008. But the real fact is many hotels are experiencing extremely low occupancy rates. The exorbitant hotel rates has to come down!

True enough it did! Singapore hotels are dropping prices in order to attract more visitors. It is now much more attractive to visit Singapore! Business travellers can now save on the costs to visit their Singapore offices and counterparts.  Visitors should also consider booking hotels nearby to the Central Business District or Central Shopping District instead, it would mean further savings.

Visitors to Singapore should really take advantage of the new price drops now, to avoid the hotel operators trying to jerk up the prices as the economy slowly recovers.

Source: Prices obtained from Hotels.Online Singapore. Prices quoted are in Singapore dollars.

The company behind Hard Rock Cafe, which owns around 124 Hard Rock cafes and 9 Hard Rock Hotels around the world, will open a hotel in Singapore next year.

It will be a luxurious hotel based on rock-and-roll-themed interiors.  Hard Rock Hotel Singapore will be one of the six hotels at the Resorts World at Sentosa, an entertainment complex comprising casino, Universal Studios theme park, an oceanarium and 1,800 hotel rooms being built by a unit of Genting Group.

The hotel is expected to charge around S$500 per room night, for a giant room with two queen sized beds and a big screen TV.  This rate is almost double of what the current average room rate for Singapore hotels.

There are many luxury hotels in Singapore currently, with the famous Raffles Hotel heading the list.

If you are visiting Singapore for the first time, or are not familiar with Singapore, chances are you will have problems choosing amongst the almost 300 Singapore hotels available.

Chances are you know which area you are visiting, say Central Business District, or near Orchard Road for example. However,  Central Business District alone can be a large area, and can be quite expensive too.

Hotels.Online Singapore has come up with an innovative way of listing the hotels.  You can now list the available hotels by street or road names.  Singapore hotels by street names give you a list of street or roads names with hotels along it. The presented results shows a short description of the street/road, with information on the nearest MRT (train) station, and a map showing the area, all very important information for your visit.

We understand that this will be further extended to allow users to search for street names which will match the closest available street with hotel!

For example, if you are visiting the Central Business District, you can choose from a list of available Singapore hotels along Bencoolen Street, which is just minutes from Central Business District and Central Shopping District!  Imagine the savings you have from the room stay and you can probably spend an extra day or two in Singapore.

Selecting a Singapore hotel for your stay in Singapore couldnt be easier, all you need to do is do a little research.

If you are visiting Singapore for business like many, you can consider hotels a little outside the Central Business District in Singapore.

There are quite a few roads leading to the Central Business District in Singapore. Such roads includes Bras Basah, Jalan Besar towards Bencoolen Street, Beach Road, Victoria Street etc.

All these roads has many Singapore hotels which are priced more economically as compared to those right smack in the middle of the Central Business District like Fullerton Hotel, Swissotel Merchant Court etc., just to name a few.

There is a recently opened one Ibis Singapore on Bencoolen, which is only around S$180, and is less than 5 - 10mins from the Central Business District AND Central Shopping District (Orchard Road)! Ibis Singapore on Bencoolen is not the only one, one Bencoolen Street which Ibis Singapore is at, there are many other hotels including Bayview Hotel, Summer View Hotel, Hotel Bencoolen, Hotel Rendezvous etc.

On Victoria Street, you have choices which includes Victoria Hotel, Carlton Hotel etc.

If you learn to choose wisely, your stay in Singapore could be much more affordable. Bear in mind taxi trips from the hotel to the Central Business District should not costs you more than $15 per trip (usually less than 10mins too, depending on traffic conditions), and that is quoting on the high side! Imagine your savings!

You can find all these hotels at Hotels.Online Singapore (http://hotels.online.com.sg).

In our next part, we will discuss about which hotels you should book if you want to save even more, even if you are on business trip.

* Prices quoted are in Singapore dollars and as per Hotels.Online Singapore, accurate as at March 2009.

Singapore will host the first Asian Youth Games (AYG) from June 29 to July 7 2009. This games will be used as preparation for the hosting of the ingugural Youth Olympics Games (YOG), which will be in August 2010.

AYG will be a multi-sports event for athletes aged 14 and 17. Many Asian countries will be using this event to have test preparation for their sports juniors before the YOG 2010.

A total of nine sports will be contested during the AYG 2009, which includes track and field, bowling, beach volleyball, three-on-three basketball, sailing, shooting, football (or soccer), swimming and diving, and table tennis.

Many Asian countries are expected to take part in the AYG 2009, therefore visitors to Singapore during the period is expected to increase. The organizers are expecting a turnout of at least 1,300 top sports juniors from 45 National Olympic Councils (NOCs). This is on top of journalists, sports officials, parents, relatives and friends of participants. Visitors rate are expected to hit a significant numbers for the event.

If you are visiting Singapore during that period (or few days before or/and after the event), or will be attending the games, you should consider making your reservations for Singapore hotels right now to avoid being hit with room shortages and end up paying premium rates for the hotels in Singapore.

In 2006-7, the local government let out many pieces of land, and encouraged property developers to develop more hotels in Singapore.

At that time, Singapore was facing an acute hotel rooms shortage, as such, it allowed many hotels in Singapore to raise the room rates.

In the past few months alone, many new Singapore hotels came aboard, bringing thousands of rooms to the market.

With the economic crunch where visitors rate dropped sharply, it also means a lot of Singapore hotels are facing low occupancy rates, it is reflected in the latest hotel room rates published.

There is a lot of good offers, cheap rates for Singapore hotels, regardless of the hotels’ location and class.

It is definitely a good time to visit Singapore.

Singapore is an island cum a city cum a country. This small country in Malay Peninsula has developed considerably in the last two decades. The development along with the ambience of the city invited tourists all around the year. So if you are a tourist visiting Singapore one thing you would surely like to check is the availability of reservation at hotels in Singapore according to your budget.

You can choose either cheap hotels or luxury hotels depending upon your need. In case you are looking for cheap hotels, Fragrance Group of Hotels fits the bill. They have many hotels in Singapore, including Crystal, Emerald, Ruby and Pearl. They charge nearly 65 -70 SGD or a night stay. The charge also depends on the time when you are visiting Singapore. Hotel 81 group of hotels in Singapore is also a good choice if your budget is slightly on the lower side. The prices there for a night stay starts from 73 SGD onwards.

If money is not a problem for you, there are lots of four and five star hotels for you in Singapore. We can start the count with Raffles Hotel Singapore. This is a world class hotel with unparallel services and exemplary customer satisfaction. There are other hotels too. Goodwood Park Hotel, Raffles The Plaza, InterContinental Singapore, Swissotel The Stamford, Le Meridien Singapore can be your other choices. Services offered by these hotels are unimpeachable and perfect. It can be said that compared to the services offered these hotels charge very less.

Singapore, an island city country is one of the most developed and wealthiest countries of the world. If you are visiting Singapore one thing you must be worried of staying there, but there is nothing to worry about it as there are many hotels in Singapore satisfying any budget. You can choose any hotel in Singapore keeping in mind the services you need and also your affordability.

One of the most popular hotels in Singapore is The Marriot Hotel Singapore. This hotel is situated in the heart of the city. This hotel is the best as it provides hospitality for both the business class and the ones on holidays. The Marriot Hotel Singapore is a five-star hotel situated on Orchard Road which is in close proximity to the shopping, entertainment and business areas. The Marriot Hotel Singapore is situated 25 km from Changi International Airport.

The Marriot Hotel Singapore has 392 rooms which include 19 suites and 6 executive rooms which are provided with private lounge areas. Rooms are well furnished with a combination of new services along with conventional needs. The Marriot Hotel Singapore provides with great meeting facilities for corporate meetings and different business purposes.

Lightning and Acoustics also add a feather to The Marriot Hotel Singapore when it comes to meetings as conferences can be held conveniently. The hotel offers great cuisines which are prepared by master chefs. Gyms, spa, swimming pool are the other features of The Marriot Hotel Singapore which might tempt you to make it a temporary home when you are in Singapore.