Close to 5 million travellers came to Singapore over a three-month period in July, August, and September 2019.

According to data from Singapore Tourism Board website (Excel file), this is the highest-ever number recorded over a quarter -- breaking all previous records.

In the same period in 2018, it was 4.83 million -- a record that has now been broken.

Third quarters strong

Historically, the third quarter of each year from July to September typically sees the highest-number of visitor arrivals to Singapore.

This period coincides with the seven-day vacation from Oct. 1 to Oct. 7 is dubbed “Golden Week” in China, since it is one of the few major government-mandated holidays in a country where personal vacation days are few.

As a result, a mass exodus of Chinese from their home country sees them travelling in the region.

In the third quarter of 2019, visitors from Greater China jumped 22 percent.

Why this is so, isn't exactly hard to guess.

The Hong Kong factor, or coincidence?

Bloomberg said in their article that the ongoing protests in Hong Kong is pushing tourists to Singapore, besides forcing the cancellation of conferences there.

For example, Bloomberg cited the Global Wellness Summit as an event casualty that had moved its conference from Hong Kong to Singapore.

The article also attributed the influx of tourists on the Crazy Rich Asians effect, one year after the movie came out.

Coinciding with the record numbers is the reopening of the 132-year-old Raffles Hotel in Singapore after an extensive renovation.

An icing on the cake for those tourists who make it here now.

Doubling tourist arrivals the past 10 years

But there is a longer term trend to Singapore's visitor arrivals: It has been going up year-on-year over the past decade.

The same stats provided on the STB website showed that visitor arrivals 10 years ago in 2009 was between 2.5 million to 2.6 million per quarter, which means the figures have effectively doubled by 2019.

The outlook for 2020 looks bright too.

Events such as Singapore Airshow, Food & Hotel Asia conference, and Gamescom Asia, will be happening in Singapore, according to a report published by DBS Bank Ltd. in October, Bloomberg said.