Political
Singapore government has always been in favour of the tourism sector. In fact, Singapore Tourism Board (STB) launched a $90million BOOST (building on opportunities to strengthen tourism) for the tourism sector). The initiative help pushed the industry through tough times by assisting MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conventions, Exhibition) companies to alleviate their business costs (Singapore Tourism Board, 2009).
Not too long ago, the Singapore government cooperated with Indonesia to develop cruise ship tourism as Singapore is enjoying a cruise tourism boom (The Jakarta Post, 2011). This collaboration boosts economic bilateral ties and tourism. Previously, the Singapore government also backed entrepreneur Ong Beng Seng’s bid to …show more content…

As Asia-Pacific basks in prosperity, middle classes drove the tourism sector up by double digits in the region (The Straits Times, 2011). Singapore’s tourism and travel sector has been ranked 10th out of 139 economies by a Economic World Forum report (Ng, 2011). As Asian consumers are more educated, they have grown to be more demanding. As a result of the internet, customers expect constant access to goods and services and immediate response from companies that sell them (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2010).
According to The Business Times (2009), a study has found that people who earns income above average has higher expectations when it comes to service excellence. Shangri-La, being an upmarket 5-star hotel has the ability and experience to cater to this market segment and provides the clientele with service over and beyond the rest.

Technological
The use of information technology in the hotel industry has grown tremendously in the past 20 years and it has become clear that information technology is now a critical competitive weapon in the industry.

With the development of the internet, it provided hoteliers the opportunity to reach customers directly and allowing transactions to be carried out immediately with the customer. This has potentially eliminated intermediaries such as travel agents, thus reducing the cost of distribution via