Dubai - hassle free for travellers

Dubai is the only place that I had visited, which does not require the traveler to complete an immigration or custom form. This archaic practice, first started more than a century ago, continued is continued mindlessly by government officials in many countries. I am thankful that the European countries have at least simplified their entry forms.

Singapore can learn a lesson from Dubai and get rid of the immigration form that visitors are required to complete in entering Singapore. The main purpose of the form is for tracking of tourist statistics. Are the statistics so important to add to the hassle for visitors?

If we are interested to know their country of origin, look at their passport. There is already a lot of information that is captured on the magnetic strip of the passport. If we want to know how many tourist stay in our hotels, we can get the information from the occupancy rates.If we want to know how many people are on group tours, ask the travel agencies. If we want to know how many people are first time visitors to Singapore, we can match the passport numbers against our huge database. We need to check anyway for the terrorists that are not allowed to enter our country.

It is time for the Singapore immigration to get rid of the dubious entry form. And perhaps, they can encourage the Asean countries to do the same, so as to make it hassle free for people to travel around Asean and promote tourism.

Tan Kin Lian
Now in Dubai on a business trip