Orchard Road makeover

Around a month ago, Singapore Tourism Board completed a $40million dollar makeover of Orchard road. WOW, $40million? Surely it must be something I do not want to miss! But just make sure you don’t get your expectations too high, before rushing madly down to Orchard Road. In fact, I feel that the makeover to Orchard road is an ideal waste of money, and the huge amount of cash could be better spent on other areas such as cleaning up of the dead leaves along Orchard Road.

Although there were many different changes, including new lighting to emphasise Orchard road’s greenery, flower totems, glass panels, plants and flowers, new benches and litter bins, etc., out of 100 people surveyed by LifeStyle along Orchard road, only 40 people noticed any difference. What’s the use of spending $40,000,000 on something that less than half of the people who visited noticed? Furthermore, out of the 40 people who spotted differences, many of them did not find that the changes made Orchard road more aesthetic, and some did not even know the purpose of the new additions.

Besides not being noticeable, the construction during the makeover also irritated quite a number of tourists, and affected the business of quite a number of stalls along Orchard Road. The noise and the dust caused by the construction also served as disruption to the shopping experience of visitors. This is clearly a negative impact on Orchard Road’s image as a tourist attraction.

The above two reasons both support the fact that the makeover was unnecessary. Also, the 40 million dollars could have been spent on more useful things like the construction of more shopping malls and widening the pavements of the roads, or even the simple cleaning up of dead leaves on the floor, as suggested by those surveyed along Orchard Road. The Singapore Tourism Board should have been thriftier and put more thought into this project before deciding to spend such a huge amount of money. STB could also have gathered more opinion from the public and other experts before carrying out the makeover.

As a conclusion, the makeover was not a very wise decision to make, given the current economic situation. The decorations were not too outstanding, and instead, the construction chased away more tourists than it attracted. The large sum of money should not be spent on this makeover.