Singapore sees drop in tourism

SINGAPORE, June 26 (UPI) -- The economic downturn and H1N1 flu produced a sharp decline in tourism last month, Singapore's Tourism Board said.

Tourists from East Asian countries like China, Korea and Japan stayed away in droves, The Straits Times, Singapore's English-language newspaper, reported Friday.

The arrival of only 730,000 tourists in May represented a decrease of 13 percent from the same month in 2008.

Visitors from Japan dropped 30 percent while the number of Chinese and Korean tourists was 40 percent lower than May 2008, the Singapore Tourism Board said.

"The sharper declines in visitor arrivals in May 2009 from markets such as China and Japan can be attributed in part to the global outbreak of Influenza A," the board said in a release.

Japanese telecommunications giant NTT DoCoMo failed to show up for Singapore's recent technology trade show even though it had paid for a booth.