How to improve Singaporean Economy and Tourism after 2008 Global Financial Crisis

The 2008 global financial crisis had strong negative economic effects worldwide, particularly on tourism. Determining appropriate policy responses to mitigate these negative effects is important. Accordingly, this study employs recent Singaporean tourism survey data, updated Singaporean input-output tables, and a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model to gauge the short-run negative effects of the 2008 global financial crisis on the Singaporean tourist sector and to simulate the effects of policy responses. The simulation results suggest that a GST deduction policy would be more effective than an industrial subsidy policy. However, if the latter is used by government, then a tourism focused subsidy policy is recommended since it is more effective than the economy-wide industrial subsidy in terms of both tourism and the aggregate economy.