Perhaps one of the most highly anticipated films of the summer, Crazy Rich Asians has been a goldmine for the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), which is continuing its efforts to modernise the city state’s image as a destination.

(Photo Credit: Singapore Tourism Board)

Lynette Pang (Assistant Chief Executive, Marketing Group, Singapore Tourism Board) who spoke at WIT Singapore 2017, stated the film is “a natural opening to get the conversation going about the real Singapore and pique interest in visiting the country… especially in the North American markets.”

And to be frank, the North American audience needed a little help in that respect. It hasn’t been that long since the Trump-Kim summit was held in Singapore, generating a spike in Google searches for “where is Singapore?”, in the USA.

Singapore was said to have spent $20 million on hosting the Summit; who knows what it spent on supporting Crazy Rich Asians as almost every government agency was cited as having backed the film in director Jon Chu’s list of thank-yous at the premiere of the movie in Singapore this week.

Crazy Rich Asians’ release puts Singapore is a strong position to capitalise on the rising appeal of the island as a destination, and indeed that is what it intends to do. (The director’s use of maps in the movie is clearly intended to ‘educate’ Americans exactly where Singapore is.)

“While we may not be able to immediately quantify returns from the movie, we certainly expect the exposure from the movie to help bolster greater global awareness of our destination and this could potentially attract more visitors over time,” said Pang.

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