Festival fun tourism

Singapore’s annual Ramadan and Eid festival is becoming increasingly popular with travellers who are visiting one of Asia’s most cosmopolitan capitals to enjoy the sights, tastes and sounds of the Muslim community’s unique celebrations.

Last year’s Hari Raya – Singapore’s term for Eid celebrations – drew 25 per cent more travellers from the Middle East than the previous year, with a total of 26,410 regional visitors arriving during August and September in 2010, up from 21,132 in the same two-month period in 2009.
 
Singapore Tourism Board (STB) is expecting even more regional visitors to travel to this year’s event, which concludes on September 7, and will cover a 1.8km stretch of the Geylang Serai district where the city-state’s Muslim inhabitants, who account for 15 per cent of the multi-cultural population, have been centred for around 200 years.

Every night during the 39-day festival the streets come alive with dazzling light decorations and buzzing street-stalls, selling traditional clothes and gifts, and delicious local Malay cuisine. Visitors can also enjoy cultural shows and a specially-designed heritage exhibition on the origins and customs of Hari Raya.

During Ramadan, Singapore’s many mosques hold the traditional nightly Tarawih prayer and pre-dawn Qiyam prayer, to which visitors are welcome, say tourist bosses. Iftar is available at a wide range of venues, including the oldest and largest mosque on the island, the Sultan Mosque, which lies in the heart of Kampong Glam. 
  
“Singapore’s Hari Raya celebrations are proving increasingly popular with visitors from the Middle East who come to enjoy the unique way we celebrate Ramadan and Eid. With trade links between the Arab world and South East Asia dating back to the Ninth Century, Singapore is well accustomed to Middle East visitors, offering a home-away-from-home during the Holy Month,” said Jason Ong, area director for Middle East and Africa, STB.

“The Hari Raya festival offers a nightly array of colour, where visitors can buy a bounty of garments and gifts, as well as try out a mouth-watering selection of local delicacies that can be sampled once the sun goes down.”

While taking part in Ramadan, visitors can enjoy family time at one of Singapore’s new integrated resorts, staying either at Resorts World Sentosa, where a raft of luxury hotels are located near the theme park of Universal Studios Singapore, or at Marina Bay Sands which boasts the world’s first Art Science Museum and a state-of-the- art theatre.

For more details on the Hari Raya festival, visit www.yoursingapore.com