Singapore - The Singapore Tourism Board said Thursday that the number of tourists visiting the city-state has declined because of the global economic crisis and the downturn could continue into next year.

The current global economic climate has caused a general air of uncertainty, which has impacted consumer sentiment and lowered discretionary spending, the board said in a monthly report.

Visitor arrivals and tourism receipts were expected to fall short of this year's targets for 10.8 million visitors and 15.5 billion Singapore dollars (10.6 billion US dollars) in tourism receipts, it conceded.

September tourist arrivals fell by 4.1 per cent from the same month a year ago to 739,000 visitors, but visitor days increased by 6.2 per cent to 3.2 million days, the board said.

It said 52 per cent of the tourists came from the city-state's top five markets: Indonesia (143,000 visitors), Australia (73,000), China (66,000), India (53,000) and Japan (48,000).

Singapore received 10.3 million tourist visitors and tourism receipts of 13.8 billion Singapore dollars last year.

The city-state has set a target of 17 million visitors by 2015 with tourism receipts of 30 billion Singapore dollars. (dpa)