Visitor arrivals in Singapore rose 17.3% in March from a year earlier to reach 928,000, the best ever recorded for the month of March, as the city-state gets a boost from its first casino opening in February.

In February visitor arrivals had surged 24% from a year earlier.

Hotel occupancy rose 14 percentage points from a year ago to 87.1%, with average room rates rising 3.3% in March to $205, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) said on Tuesday. 

 

The number of “visitor days” — the overall visitor arrivals times an average length of stay for each visitor — grew 16.4% in March from a year earlier to 3.5 million days. 

Singapore is banking on its two casinos to boost tourists. The US$4.7 billion Resort World on Sentosa, owned by Malaysia’s Genting Group (GENT.KL), opened its doors to visitors in February., and the US$5.5 billion Las Vegas Sands (LVS.N) owned Marina Bay Sands casino resort opened on Tuesday. 

Visitor arrivals to Singapore may rise by as much as 30% this year, helped by an economic recovery in Asia and by the two casinos, STB said in March. 

Each casino is expected to contribute a value add of $2.7 billion, or 0.5 to 1%, to Singapore’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 2015, STB estimates.

Singapore is trying to diversify into services industries such as tourism to reduce dependence on manufacturing. But it suffered a fall in tourism as well as exports in 2009 during the financial crisis.

The number of visitors to Singapore fell by 4.3% last year to 9.7 million, driving revenue from the sector down 19% to $12.4 billion.