Measures to Prevent Negative Impact of Haze on Efficiency in the Services Sector

Ms Tan Su Shan asked the Minister for Trade and Industry given the lag time between the implementation of productivity-enhancing measures and resulting productivity gains, particularly in the services sector, what is the

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Ministry doing to prevent the potentially negative medium term impact on efficiency specifically in the tourism industry which may be hit by the current haze situation.

Since 2012, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), the Singapore Hotels Association (SHA), the National Productivity and Continuing Education Council (NPCEC) and other agencies have been working together to improve manpower quality, operational efficiency and customer satisfaction in the hotels industry. Initiatives, like the Job Flexibility for Productivity (JFP) multi-skilling programme, have equipped hotel workers to do more diverse jobs, and improved their career prospects. From an initial pool of eight participating hotels, we now have 20 hotels on the JFP programme. We expect more hotels and tourism stakeholders to come onboard with the expansion of JFP to cover the entire services sector from 1 July 2013.

STB is building on this progress by investing up to $265 million of its Tourism Development Fund in programmes that help companies and workers across various tourism sectors with skills upgrading, technology adoption and business process enhancements. STB and its industry partners remain committed to raising productivity over the medium and long term.

STB has been actively monitoring the haze situation and is in close contact with industry stakeholders. The adverse business impact was felt most keenly by stakeholders with outdoor operations, but STB has assessed that the episode has not significantly dented the overall tourism sector so far.

Nevertheless, the medium and longer term impact on our tourism industry would depend on the duration and severity of the haze going forward. STB will continue to work with stakeholders on the ground to ensure that the industry is ready with business contingency plans should the haze situation persist or worsen.