Well, the good news is for those who attended the recent Singapore Tourism Industry Conference, the choice was made clear – there is no choice but for Singapore to go the quality route (a small place can only handle so many tourists and locals are already complaining about the size of the foreign resident population) and besides, there are not enough hands to do the work if it gets masses of tourists.

And for hoteliers and everyone else in service complaining about the lack of staff – I hear the foreign quota has been further cut – well, you also have no choice but to get on with it because the restrictions are here to stay – for now.

That was the clear message sent out by the STB when it outlined its strategy, “Navigating the next phase of tourism growth” at the event attended by more than 800 industry members. The salient words are quality and high-yield.

Lionel Yeo, chief executive, outlined four factors that made this path of no-choice inevitable – increasingly discerning travellers, intensifying regional competition, slower workforce growth and “the visitor economy’s impact on the resident population grows more immediate”.

Asia will continue to be the main focus, already accounting for 75% of visitors. Its top source markets – Indonesia, China, India and Malaysia – make up slightly over 40% of tourism receipts and half of visitor arrivals.

Tourism receipts measured by STB do not include sightseeing, entertainment and gaming and when you consider the fact that spending at VIP tables at Marina Bay Sands reached US$18.21 billion (S$22 billion) between January and March this year, up 42.2 per cent from the same period last year – the highest quarterly volume in MBS’s history – you know gaming is big business for tiny Singapore.

Excluding this though, it is clear Singapore is facing pressures on tourism receipts, a measure of quality tourism. There was a jump in TR between 2009 and 2011 – from S$12.6b to S$22.3b in the two years – but between 2011 and 2012, there’s only a small growth to $23b, showing the halo effect of the Integrated Resorts is dimming.

So short of building another game-changing attraction, Singapore needs to get smart about its tourism growth. The STB shared four roads it would take – adopting a yield-driven marketing approach, enhancing destination attractiveness, supporting industry competitiveness and building local engagement.

Yeo said Singapore needed to go after the customers who got it – cherry-picking those folks who understand Singapore and would appreciate it, share it with their friends, and return.

One area where Singapore has a clear advantage is in the business segment but even there, Robin Lokerman, CEO of MCI, sitting on the panel, said it was facing stiff competition from the likes of Korea and Abu Dhabi. These places were hungry, ambitious, creative and Singapore needed to step up its game. Lokerman called for the setting up of a full-fledged unit to chase business events and not have it embedded as a division within STB.

In the area of enhancing destination attractiveness, Kevin Cheong, chairman of the Association of Singapore Attractions, said it was time for Singapore to stop taking the “Me too” approach by bringing in big foreign brands, and instead focus on building up “Me” stories. “We need to create our own stories, what is truly Singapore,” he said.

And he said “Heartware” training was needed even more now when there are not enough hands to do the work. His association, now catapulted to the limelight at this moment in Singapore’s tourism history, is training members how to “tell and sell the story”.

To this, STB has an answer – it’s set up a Kickstart Fund of S$5 million to “encourage more innovative content in the lifestyle sectors”. Financial support will be provided for the creation and test-bedding of lifestyle concepts and events with strong tourism potential and scalability. This new fund is on top of other schemes such as Leisure Events Fund, Tourism Product Development Fund, the Business Events in Singapore Scheme to support quality conferences, and the Cruise Development Fund.

The question of grants and whether they stifled creativity was raised at the panel with Lokerman voting yes in favour of funding support and entrepreneur Loh Lik Peng, owner of New Majestic, Hotel 1929 and Wanderlust, saying, “If your business can’t stand on its own two feet, you have no business being in business.”

Loh, who’s expanded his hotel interests to Shanghai, London and now Sydney, said he’s had to manage with lower staff count, closing restaurants on certain days and deploying staff between duties and outlets.

He expressed concern that even as the government was saying “yield-driven”, it was allowing more hotels to be built – which would put pressure on rates at the same time as hotels were struggling with rising costs due to labour shortages.

CBRE estimates a total of 2,400 rooms entered the market in 2012, possibly resulting in a 5.8% growth in the gazetted stock. Another 2,500 rooms is expected by end 2013 and hotel projects in planning stage could contribute another 2,400 rooms. This year will welcome the opening of Ramada Singapore, Carlton Project , Connexion , Holiday Inn Express, Fairy Hill Point Hotel, Aqueen Lavender Hotel , Modena Frasers Suite, Sofitel Singapore, and Aqueen Geylang Hotel.

To support industry competitiveness, two salient words stood out – productivity and innovation. STB would encourage innovation in business models and the adoption of technology, with particular focus on the travel agency sector which it said had to move towards “sophisticated customization of products and services”.

All this happening at a time when tourism growth is slowing. The STB forecasts that visitor arrivals would grow between 3% and 4%, and tourism receipts between 4% and 6% year-on-year over the next decade.

It is clear Singapore tourism is at a watershed moment. After a couple of boom years, it is at a plateau and it would seem to be a good time to “pause on the plateau” and take stock of what it has, where it needs to go and how to get there.

Faced with the fact that it has no choice but to scale the quality ladder, it now has to figure out what that means and what choices – yes, choices – it needs to make to keep visitors coming back.

One choice is to create and package local, unique content – but will little pockets of “Me stories” do for tourism what two mega Integrated Resorts did in the past two years?

Will the STB’s new slogan “Singapore Shiok”, aimed at showcasing local delights, be enough? Its new video on YouTube (pictured) which has attracted more than a million views seems to have gotten more brickbats than bouquets in the local media.

In this article, Professor Bernd Schmitt, director of the Institute on Asian Consumer Insight, said the STB campaign “Your Singapore” and the new slogan “Singapore Shiok” to showcase local delights do not give much direction, he said.

“STB should take a step back, ask what we are really proud of, what can we sell, what are our strengths? Maybe some soul searching instead of throwing it to visitors to decide,” he said. “By trying to be something to everyone, you may end up being nothing to anyone.”

And when the question was asked at the industry panel what it meant to be Singapore, “multi-racial diversity and unity” stood out.

Now how to dig deep to tell and sell the story to the right customers who will get it, who will pay for it and who will love it.

Choices, choices.

* Thanks, Andrew Chan, for the industry panel photo at top.