CATIE OWEN CAUGHT UP WITH THE SINGAPORE TOURISM BUREAU TO DISCUSS THE CITY ’ S NEW SUSTAINABILITY ROADMAP

t November ’ s IBTM World , Singapore Tourism Board ( STB ) announced its new MICE Sustainability Roadmap . Juliana Kua , assistant chief executive , International Group at Singapore Tourism Board ( STB ), shared more details with CMW .

Catie Owen : What ’ s driving Singapore ’ s sustainability movement ? Juliana Kua : It starts from the fact that we all must drive towards sustainability ; as a nation , we have already stated that it ’ s one of our top priorities . We ’ ve come up with the Singapore Green Plan , where we have a lot of targets that we want to achieve by 2030 . Additionally , we ’ re aiming as a country to be carbon neutral by 2050 . Since tourism is an important part of Singapore ’ s economy , we must be doing our part in the sustainable tourism sector - that ’ s where we ’ re starting .

Juliana Kua , Singapore Tourism Board

our six big venues . We aim for them to have an international certification , which is an important step . Finally , our roadmap is set to follow closely behind our overall national plan , which is to start a complete reduction of our carbon footprint in 2030 and to be carbon neutral by 2050 .

To achieve our sustainability standards , it ’ s vital to have the industry on board . The government can announce policies , but whether they ’ re actually implemented relies on the industry .

Below : The Singapore brand is a familiar sight on show floors at industry events , such as IBTM World

CO : Are there any areas that STB is looking to build upon ? JK : As a starting point , rolling out our roadmaps is a good step . But it ’ s now time to push in the direction of implementation . For this , as I mentioned , buy-in from the industry is critical . At the same time , we also know that being sustainable sometimes makes costs go up . To combat this , incentives and grants are a major part of Singapore tourism ’ s strategy ; there are several grants that industry players can apply for .

The Business Improvement Fund covers up to 70 % of qualifying costs for companies to increase efficiency , which often means doing things sustainably . We also have an incentive for training to educate our industry players about sustainability . For that , we subsidise about 80 % of the courses ’ costs for tourism sector professionals . Hopefully , these will move industry members in the direction of sustainability more .

STB is also big on tech . In 2015 , we welcomed our first chief technology officer and started to build tech solutions . Part of this includes dedicated sustainability initiatives . This will also help us to come up with even more solutions that we can share with the industry . n

CO : Can you explain some of the key points of the new roadmap ? JK : In April , we launched our tourism sustainability strategy which covers the entire tourism sector . At IBTM , we ’ re launching the MICE Sustainability Roadmap . We plan to define a set of standards that will work for Singapore and other countries – so that it is adopted more widely . We plan to define them by 2023 , by working with our industry associations and CEOs ; more importantly , we want to have them internationally recognised by 2024 to give them a stronger global standing .

Also , at the heart of our targets are