has had a turmoil year in 2008, with constant protest and tourism industry is heavily affected. Terrorism also affect some of the country in the region, with India (2008) and Pakistan(2009) the worst hit recently that causes hundreds of life lost. Other includes the North Korea missile crisis that forces SIA to re-route its flight. China have also seen riot in Xingjian province in July 2009.

3.2 Economic

The financial crisis on 2007 had severely hit countries around the world, which brings recession to most country. The crisis has last through 2008 and made financial institution very cautious in loaning money and companies have gone through tough cost cutting measure to survive. Sign of recovery have shown during year 2009 and IMF has predicted that most of the countries will be out of recession at the end of 2009.

The oil price, hitting a high level of USD 140.00 per barrel at June 2008 has seen a sharp drop to USD 40.00 around December 2008. The price then rise steadily to around USD 80.00, hitting the high peak of 2009 at the end of October [Channelnewsasia.com. Nov 09]. The oil price have resulted in mix projection, some have projected the oil price will drop to a comfortable level of USD 70.00 due to most country are still in recession and other speculated that it will continue to surge because of the.

Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has putting in extreme effort in promoting Singapore as destination of MICE (Meeting, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions). In February 2009, a SGD 90 million BOOST (Building on Opportunities to Strengthen Tourism) program is launch, follow by October 2009 announcement on a new Tourism Compass 2020 roadmap to enhance Tourism 2015, the aim to make Singapore leading city for MICE [STB, 12 Oct 2009]. Two integrated resort project costing SGD 18 billion, Marina Bay Sand and Resort World at Sentosa is also going to complete 2010 that is expected to drawn 17 million top quality tourist within the next 5 years. Singapore will also continue to host the Formula One night race. All these will definitely have positive effect on business travel in Singapore and boost the tourism sector.

3.3 Social Cultural