Pilot tours on Sentosa and automation to consolidate bookings from multiple sources to streamline operations.

With inbound travel expected to soften to Singapore this year, due to the strong currency, stiffer competition and higher costs of living, one of the city state’s leading tour companies, Tribe Tours, is taking the opportunity to innovate around product and automation of operations.

Product innovation is not new to this company that was founded in 2016 by Jason Loe to offer curated tours for small groups. It has won numerous awards from the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) for its tours and its Chinatown Murders, a gamification and storytelling experience, won the WiT Travel Changemakers Award 2023 in the “Hidden Gems” category.

Yock Song Law, head of partnerships and business development at Tribe Tours, receiving the WiT Travel Changemakers Award 2023 in the “Hidden Gems” category.

“You have to keep innovating,” said Yock Song Law, head of partnerships and business development, “to keep your edge. We do anticipate inbound to soften this year after the very strong performance in 2023, and so it’s a good time to invest in automation and product innovation.”

In particular, Law, who joined Tribe Tours from the STB, where he spent 10 years of his career, has his sights on the accessible and inclusive travel market. He sees potential for demand not only from inbound travellers but the local market as well.

“We’re talking about tours not only for PWD (Persons With Disabilities) but an ageing population around the world. In Singapore, citizens aged 65 and above made up almost a fifth of our population in 2023,” he said.

According to Population Trends, in Asia and the Pacific, the number of older persons is projected to more than double, from 630 million in 2020 to about 1.3 billion by 2050, forming one quarter of the population – up from 13.6% in 2020.

Tribe Tours launched the first inclusive and accessible tour in Singapore, conducted by PWD guides, last August. Its 1.5 hour wheelchair-friendly “Enabling Village Tour” takes visitors around the inclusive and accessible community space, where they learn about how each of the areas cater to different needs that persons with disabilities may require, from physical needs to assistive technology and employment opportunities. The tour showcases how Enabling Village as a whole is a seed community for persons with disabilities.

“Enabling Village Tour” guides Joanne Toh, Jackie Chionh and Warren Sheldon Humphries

Law said the tour has proven popular for corporates and school groups, and welcomed visitors from countries including Korea, Hong Kong, China, and Thailand. “Overseas visitors are particularly interested in Singapore’s approach to inclusive planning. Seeing visitors depart feeling inspired and eager to implement similar initiatives in their own communities is truly rewarding.”

Using tech and data to easy wayfinding for PWDs

He is now working on pilot projects with the Sentosa Development Corporation to develop wheelchair-friendly routes and tours on the island. “For PWDs, going to Sentosa now can be a challenge – and there are several stress points. How wheelchair-friendly is the public transport, how do they get access to the beach?

“Sentosa is a good place for us to test and start. We are looking at a range of tours – self-guided, guided for those with some mobility such as ability to get out of their wheelchairs and a different route for guests requiring full accessibility options.”

Beyond that, he is exploring how tech and data can help with wayfinding around Singapore. At the Global Travel Tech Thinktank run as part of WiT Singapore last October, Law led the group discussion on how AI could help in the development of “Accessible and Inclusive tourism”.

“Travel can be more inclusive for people with disabilities when we make wayfinding easier. By empowering PWDs to provide firsthand data on accessibility, we can feed open maps platforms like Google with the information they need to help everyone navigate the world with confidence,” he said.

The Singapore government is also taking measures to prepare for the future of an ageing society. From March, wheelchair users can find barrier-free routes on the national OneMap app, making it easier for them to navigate different parts of Singapore. The initiative by the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) to map out such routes will show users features like wheelchair-accessible covered linkways, ramps, footpaths, pedestrian crossings, and overhead bridges with lifts. About 1,100km of accessible routes have been mapped across nine areas in Singapore.

The wheelchair-friendly “Enabling Village Tour” takes visitors around the inclusive and accessible community space

At the same time, a group called SmartBFA has formed to provide optimized navigation for wheelchair users. Its website outlines three goals – provide barrier-free routes through a navigation app, identify areas for improvement through a data dashboard and advanced data collection app and empower people with mobility needs.

Said Law, “The desired solution is a crowdsourcing platform empowered by AI to create a comprehensive and dynamic accessibility map that can be layered on common map platforms like Google Maps, Bing, Baidu Maps etc.”

The key elements of the solution would include:

• Empower PWDs: Enable PWDs to easily contribute accessibility data through a user-friendly platform, including features like geo mapping, location tagging, photos, and voice recordings.
• AI-powered validation: Leverage AI to verify and update data in real-time, ensuring accuracy and reliability. This could involve image recognition for identifying accessibility features, natural language processing for analyzing user reports, and cross-referencing with existing data sources.
• Open data platform: Make the collected accessibility data openly available to individuals, public and private organizations, and map platforms, fostering collaboration and accelerating the development of inclusive environments and route.

Automation to save 20 hours of manual work a week – “frees up valuable time for higher-impact tasks”

Beyond developing this market, Tribe Tours is also investing in a tech solution that will streamline its backend processes.

“In addition to its own direct channel, Tribe works with multiple Online Travel Agents and B2B partners in the sales of different tour products. The tech solution aims to automate and consolidate bookings from multiple booking sources via email into a single, organised repository. But that’s not all. By leveraging this data, the solution will automate tour operations, proactively allocating guides, vendors and sending timely reminders to customers.

“Automation is a game-changer for our efficiency, saving us over 20 hours of manual work per week. Imagine this: a last-minute booking arrives, and within seconds, the guide gets guest details and the guest receives trip info – all automatically! This used to take us at least 10 minutes of manual coordination. In a year focused on cost control, this translates to significant savings and frees up valuable time for higher-impact tasks. It is a solution that will benefit the tours and operations industry tremendously.”

Singapore tourism did stage a good rebound in 2023, with 12.37 million arrivals in the first 11 months – almost double the 6.31 million full-year 2022 figure. But anecdotal evidence points to a slowdown in December, spilling over into the first quarter.

Analysts expect continued recovery in 2024, but not to pre-pandemic levels. Research company Tourism Economics said Singapore’s tourism numbers are unlikely to recover to 2019 levels until 2025, with broad-based delays in travel recovery regionally, and China remains the missing piece.

The visa waiver initiative between Singapore and China will help but with more destinations – including Malaysia and Thailand – offering that, it is no longer a competitive edge.