“Your Singapore,” the catchphrase of the Singapore Tourism Board’s (STB) latest branding, hopes to convey that the destination “is an easy place for visitors to follow their own interests,” says Kershing Goh, the STB’s regional director of the Americas. In this case the shoe fits perfectly, because Singapore is one of those rare Asian cities where Americans can feel comfortable even when they’re lost. The city is safe, its restaurants and street food stands are sanitary, English is spoken everywhere, and its Metro system is easy to use. Those assets make it a place that many want to return to even after they have seen all of its sights, because they just like being there. Thus it is increasingly similar to London, New York, Hong Kong and other cities where the lifestyle is as appealing as the “must-do” attractions. Your clients can make their own personal Singapore outside of any regimented list of tourist sites. That may be why the city enjoys a repeat visitor rate of 45 percent. Singapore, however, is not standing still; the city continues to add new enhancements and new dimensions.

In less than 200 years, Singapore grew from a sleepy port for rubber plantations to the major financial and transport hub that it is today. It’s been a dynamo of perpetual transformation since it became a Straits Settlement under Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819. Singapore has had little problem selling itself to the business and financial community as a vital center in Asia, but until recently it’s had less success doing that for tourists. “But business travelers,” says Goh, “have helped feed our tourism, because so many of them find they enjoy Singapore and then return as tourists.”