Singapore picking up Chinese tourists

As more Chinese tourists are deterred from traveling to traditionally popular destinations such as Malaysia and Vietnam, other East Asian countries are eyeing the world's biggest spenders.

Singapore - the neighbor of Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines, whose Chinese visitors have sharply decreased due to the anti-China violence and disturbances - is beefing up its local tourism promotion amid China's ever-expanding outbound tourism industry.

"Singapore has been seeing increasing Chinese visitors in the past few years, and we aim at attracting more tourists, because fewer are heading to other traditional East Asian destinations," said Derek Tay Hock Guan, managing director of Lex Travel Pte Ltd, a travel agency in Singapore.