Roles of Urban Redevelopment authority in Tourism Planning

The Urban Redevelopment Authority, also known as URA in short, is an independent statutory board under the Ministry of National Development which took on roles in the planning of the land use of Singapore, as well as being the conversation authority. Their mission is “to make Singapore a great city to live, work and play in” which means that the objectives of URA are channelled into attaining the broad vision of turning Singapore into a unique destination for tourist, while a liveable city for its citizen.These objectives include the conservation of heritage buildings, ensuring sustainability with the limited amount of resources Singapore have, the further development of new and iconic infrastructure for Singapore, as well as ensuring the interests of the different stakeholders are being met. At the same time, URA ensures that the stakeholders’ interests and welfare do not compromise that of each other. Role of URA in Tourism Planning URA plays a big part in influencing tourism planning in Singapore due to the significance of their authority and land panning decisions.With the master plan and concept plan both panning out and segmenting the land according to different uses for the future, places which want to transform and become a tourism site will have to be under these designated land, which URA authorizes.

Examples such as building a hotel property, a resort enclave or a theme park, would have to have their projects undertaken at stipulated sites that URA has had identified and properly zoned. Strict rules and guidelines will also be implemented to prevent the misuse of the properties.According to URA’s website, it was stated that a hotel cannot be converted to other forms of uses if it falls under certain criteria which URA had stated. Two of the criteria stated would be that hotels would have to be located on sites zoned for hotel use in the Master Plan, as well as the rule that hotels can too be located within sites zoned for other uses on the condition that there is a specific planning or sales requirement for a minimum hotel quantum to be provided.Hence, this show that URA actually plays the role of distributing and supplying the land and infrastructure for tourism-related purposes, as well as setting rules and guidelines in controlling and maintaining a healthy balance of tourism supplies even after the construction of the infrastructure. Another important part which URA plays that is crucially important to tourism would be the conservation of heritage buildings.

URA is committed to preserving the historical sites and buildings which exude the early charm of Singapore and provide huge sentimental value, as well as showcase the different cultures of our multi-cultural society through their different architectural designs and architecture. According to an article released by URA (2012), it shows that URA has managed to conserve the entire historic districts of Chinatown, Kampong Glam and Little India and also up to over 7000 buildings in more than 100 areas.This thus clearly illustrates that URA emphasizes and places a huge importance on conservation and through such extensive conservation projects as seen with those worked upon on Chinatown, Kampong Glam and Little India. These places are then able to retain their original charm and become a destination full of heritage and culture – an aspect that tourists always wanted to experience and marvel at.The conservation of heritage buildings highlights how conservation links up with tourism planning and how through conservation projects, URA is indirectly playing a part in ensuring a unique tourist destination is able to be developed with the correct elements and buildings.

Singapore, which is a small city-state with limited land space, resources but a highly dense population, definitely requires extensive and comprehensive planning with regards to tourism.With the needs of the local community already being a challenge to accommodate, it would be an uphill task to actually accommodate to the needs of the tourist as well. Therefore, Singapore needs to have good tourism planning to also accommodate to tourists, while ensuring that locals are not compromised of their own interests. A healthy balance of land space and resources to be distributed for business and commercial uses, housing and tourist sites, are hence relatively important in ensuring that all the different needs of the locals as well as tourists are met.

Due to the fact that building a tourist destination requires lots of resources, especially the soft and hard infrastructure of a destination which are relatively important to a destination in terms of its attractiveness to tourist, proper tourism planning had to be done beforehand in order to deliver such infrastructures. Especially iconic buildings which required a certain amount of time in order to be completed, usually required large amount of planning in order to assure the infrastructures are to be completed in time in order to fit into the timeline of the project and whole master plan.It is therefore crucial in delivering the infrastructure in the stipulated timeline of the destination in order to accommodate to the tourist. Tourism planning is also important in allowing when or what infrastructure is needed to be built to fit into the tourism plan which STB may set out to achieve. One of the example is Marina Bay Sands integrated resorts which has become one of Singapore’s most iconic buildings, has had actually gone through extensive planning beforehand.

This is to be in line in achieving STB tourism plans of 17 million tourism arrival, which needs a further push during the economic downturn in 2009.From this example, it also shows how URA and STB cooperate with each other in achieving the tourism goals. Issues in Planning and Development The tourism planning and development is never a smooth sailing one, hence challenges and issues would definitely be expected in the process of planning. One of the challenges which URA faces will be the land constraint that Singapore currently faces. Due to the limited land spaces in Singapore, there is always a need to further expand the amount of capacity of our land through land reclamation.

Using Marina Bay as an example, it has undergone land reclamation to expand southwards down of the city. Further expansion plan is still currently being considered as URA is intending to further expand the marina area to accommodate the huge amount of activities taking place currently. URA may also faces issues with developing of the land further south through land reclamation as the sea is deeper further south, it may be a huge challenge to reclaim the land further south. As land reclamation is a hugely expensive project, significant amount of money would have to be pumped inside this project.

Therefore in the long run, land reclamation is not cost effective and it may prove to be unsustainable. Furthermore land reclamation has a potential impact on the environment and this may not be well received with various organisations and activist group. Another potential issues which the planning and development may face is the loss of appeal of the heritage buildings. As in Marina Bay Sands there is a concept of seamless extension being implemented with new development and more new skyscrapers coming up to enhance the new skyline.

The historical buildings like the Fullerton hotels may therefore not be the main focus of these tourist as they may perceived these buildings to be inferior as compared to the newer and more iconic buildings. Hence, there may be a loss of appeal towards these historical buildings as visitor starts to marvel at these newer buildings and that is definitely something which URA did not want it to happen. However, it may be inevitable as visitors may be more attracted to these new skyscrapers and iconic buildings. While there is a need to provide the infrastructure in allowing the tourism sector to cater to the needs of the tourist, URA should also take into considerations of the needs of the locals.

As more and more hotels is going to be built in the near future, more land space will be taken up for building more hotels in the future. According to , more and more hotels are popping out of the corridors alongside Victoria street and middle road which With locals now facing a shortage of housing and business property, it would definitely create certain disgruntlement among some of the locals as their needs of having more flats being built is not met, instead of building more hotels.Therefore this may be an issue, which locals may not be satisfied that instead of meeting their needs, it is the tourist needs which comes first. This may be a part that URA should maybe look into in splitting more land evenly for development that is beneficial towards the locals. How STB and URA Work Together STB, which is the National Tourism Organisation of Singapore, usually take charge of the marketing aspect of tourism Singapore as the destination to visitors. They develop ideas and always try to innovate in coming up with new forms of tourism and tourist activities in order to attract and appeal to potential visitors.

Therefore STB which has such a broad vision in turning Singapore into one of the most unique destination in the world, definitely require assistance in terms of the infrastructure as well as site planning. This is therefore the part where URA comes in and they would offer assistance and work with the STB in zoning out and identifying areas for development into tourism sites that is in line with STB creativity and vision, as well as assisting STB in the design and implementation of certain infrastructures.One of the example which greatly signify how both STB and URA works together can be shown through the example in the revamping of Orchard Road. According to , URA and STB works together in having numerous plans in turning Orchard Road into among one of the world’s great street which is comparable to the New York's Fifth Avenue or London's Regent Street. Some of the plans include creating a distinctive junction which helps to characterize the street and giving it a youthful energy, as well as coming up with distinctive streets through upgrading of the malls with new paving, street furniture and lampposts, and different kinds of greenery.There is also a notable effort from URA and STB to allow Orchard Road to be more connected through the utilization of underground links and more pedestrian friendly malls which helps to allow easy access of different malls and places within Orchard Road.

All these plans are just some of the initiatives and plans that both URA and STB had managed to collaborate and come up with. While zooming into year 203 now, we can clearly see the changes and transformation of Orchard Road as compared in year 2001.The Orchard now is more lively and full of distinctive street icons and there are more buskers adding on to a breath of new life to the streets. Therefore this shows us that STB extensive marketing efforts in promoting Orchard Road as a lively and bustling shopping area for tourist had actually been a success. However, without the assistance of URA in terms of the support in infrastructure planning and design, as well as coming up with policies that entails and encourages tenants to cooperate with the ideas being proposed, these whole transformation would not be as easy as it seems.

This once again shows how important collaboration of both governmental organisation is in order to achieve tourism goals. Stakeholders in Tourism Planning Process In tourism planning process, there is always a need to consult the various stakeholder parties that would affects or would be affected by the policies or projects being initiated by the planning processes. The stakeholders in the tourism planning process in Singapore is actually the government, the community which is the locals as well as the private sector.The different stakeholders would have to work together and support each other in order for the tourism plans to work and hopefully benefit each other.

The government agencies such as the STB and URA, would come up with the policies and grand master plans that would help to kick start and facilitate the tourism development. They would usually provide incentives or offer grants to the private sectors to encourage them to be involved in setting up business and take charge of the operation side of the tourism projects.The private sector would then be able to provide their services and hence supplying the tourism supplies that are needed in order for the tourism destination to be fully equipped with the necessary supplies such as food and beverage and accommodation. As for local community, the government would usually engage the locals in contributing new ideas which could be effective and innovative.

They would also sometimes held focus groups or even conduct surveys to the local community in order hoping to receive good ideas and suggestions from the local community.Using an example from the revamping of Orchard Road by URA and STB, it actually show us that how the government agencies is encouraging and utilizing incentives and also policies to make sure that these policies changes will actually benefit towards the private sector, which ultimately contribute and change as according to what the governmental sectors want on the ground to actually be in line with their vision in making Orchard Road a better destination for tourist.STB and URA will also held a dialogue with the Orchard Road Business Association two weeks before the exhibition-A series of stakeholders' dialogues that have been planned during the exhibition period, which is from 6 to 15 April 2001 to hear opinions and views from the private sectors. At the end of the day, the governmental agencies also wants the different opinions from the locals which that have any interesting ideas to share.Members of the public who wish to give their feedback can fill in a feedback form at the exhibition, or submit their feedback via the STB or URA websites.

Therefore this example actually briefly shows us how all these different stakeholders actually come together to make things work and actually contribute in part of the tourism planning process.