Singapore Is Aglitter With Holiday Cheer

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. “Snow” is on the ground. Tinsel, mistletoe and boughs of holly are everywhere. Strings of twinkling lights hang like canopies over city streets, and teenagers are asking for cellular phones in their stockings.

But wait a minute. Isn’t it 95 degrees outside in this place 85 miles north of the equator? Aren’t there more Buddhists here than Christians? And more Taoists and Muslims too? So Christmas in . . . Singapore? What’s up?

The answer is that this savvy little city-state knows the value of a dollar. And, despite its reputation as a charmless, cheerless place, it knows how to have a good time. So for 17 years, Singapore has thrown a wingding of a Christmas celebration that may be unequaled in the non-Christian world.

After a slump during the regionwide economic crisis of recent years, the crowds are recapturing the spirit.

Tanglin Mall has fired up its foam-making machine, and kids are sliding down frosty white mini-hills in corridors flanked by luxury shops. Tangs department store has spent $60,000 on Christmas decorations and opened a shop to sell ornaments and trimmed trees. On a recent evening, officials fired up the lights on a 70-foot Douglas fir flown in from Mt. Shasta and erected on Orchard Road, in the heart of the commercial district.

“The Christmas celebration was a commercial idea when it started in 1984,” said Kathleen Tan, a marketing executive with the Singapore Tourism Board. “But over the years, it’s become a cultural thing. . . . It’s a tradition now for families to come to Orchard Road or Chinatown to enjoy the transformation of the city into a winter fantasy.”

With schools on their six-week “winter” break, the wide shopping boulevards feel like New York’s Fifth Avenue, with people shoulder to shoulder and not a vacant seat in Haagen-Dazs’ open-air ice cream shop.

“This is the key retail season for us--the season we count on,” said William Goh, who manages a camera store on Orchard Road. “And we’ve been packed. Business has been great.”

After sluggish retail seasons in 1997 and ‘98, at the height of the Asian economic crisis, that’s good news. And it’s another sign that Singapore and the more developed Southeast Asian lands, such as Malaysia and parts of Indonesia and Thailand, are on the rebound. Singapore, in particular, is emerging stronger and faster from recession than anyone expected.

Well-heeled Southeast Asians once looked on Singapore as the region’s Rodeo Drive. They’d arrive by the planeload from Jakarta and Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur to stock up on the latest designer brands and the newest electronic gadgets. Sometimes they’d jet in during the morning and be home by dinner.

But by the late 1980s, with Southeast Asian economies enjoying a phenomenal boom, all the countries--except the poor cousins, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar (formerly Burma)--had their own marbled shopping meccas, and upscale shops were as common as noodle kitchens. Singapore, where English is commonly spoken, went on a marketing offensive to regain a competitive edge. One of its strategies was the Christmas celebration.

The dividends were quick in coming. Singapore will attract more than 7 million tourists this year, an increase of about 10% over 1999. It is a favored Christmas destination for U.S. expatriates throughout Southeast Asia. (It also is home to 15,000 Americans.) With 95 five-star hotels and a total of 30,000 rooms, Singapore is almost fully booked for Christmas and New Year.

Because of Singapore’s success, Christmas already has spread to neighboring Malaysia. “The hotels there are trying to follow Singapore hotels,” design consultant Laura Teo told Singapore’s Business Times. “If you look at their Christmas decorations, it’s like looking at Singapore 10 years ago. But they are trying.”