Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Immigration card

Why are visitors to Singapore still required to complete an immigration card? This practice has been abandoned in many countries, including Malaysia. The visitors passports are scanned and most of the required information can already been obtained from this exercise.

I can think of two reasons for continuing this practice:

a) To collect data for tourism
b) To warn visitors about the severe penalty for drug offences.

Both of these goals can be achieved in more convenient ways, for example:

a) Give a flyer to visitors passing through immigration to warn them about the penalty.
b) The tourism statistics can be obtained through other sources, e.g. occupancy of hotel. Alternatively, a more reliable statistical profile can be obtained through a separate representative survey.

Let us get rid of the immigration card.



3 comments:

  1. Arts Festival in JB. On monday they have a community ride in JB city. A few riders & i rode up. We just need to write our names & that's it! We were given t-shirt, number tack for lucky draw & meal coupon.

    In sillypore we would need to fill in nric, address, NOK, tel etc etc. Msia is really boleh with such a simplified process. There's no redtape at all. I'm highly impressed.

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  2. Malaysian Immigration Officers used to wear a sullen, unfriendly face.
    Recently they look friendly and courteous, and the overhead road direction boards are clearly marked, and surprise, surprise, we see "Woodlands, instead of Singapura, clearly indicated.
    Really, they are progressing fast in various ways, going 2 steps forward, while we in Singapore are going 1 step forward, but 2 steps backwards.
    Very soon, we would slide back to the 70s and 80s of the previous century.

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  3. "To warn visitors about the severe penalty for drug offences"

    Before flight landed at Changi Airport, cabin crew had warned !

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