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The government is making more land available for hotels.

More than half of the new sites placed under the Land Sales Programme for the second half of this year are set aside for hotels.

The move is in line with the government's drive to attract 17 million visitors by 2015.

Altogether there are 15 new sites under the Land Sales Programme.

One site at Beach Road/Middle Road has been placed on the Confirmed List and will be put up for tender.

The remaining 14 sites are on the Reserve List, meaning that they will be put on tender only when the URA gets a bid which is acceptable.

Of these 14, six are hotel sites, and the confirmed site at Beach Road has a hotel component to it.

Altogether, the government land sales could supply some 3,300 hotel rooms.

This is timely since the average hotel occupancy has hit 84 percent and the meetings and conventions business driven by the integrated resorts means the need for more hotel rooms.

Some consultants say the choice of locations is interesting because of the changing trends.

Knight Frank's director, Nicholas Mak, said: "Some of these visitors' profile will be different from the Western travellers. We could expect a rise in Asian visitors, for example, from China and India. Surveys have shown that some of these visitors prefer to spend more on shopping and entertainment and not that much on hotel accommodation."

On the office sector, the government is looking to develop areas outside the CBD as the market within the prime office vicinity reaches almost full occupancy, hitting sub-5 percent in the core CBD area.

The new sites at Anson Road and Tampines Grande on the reserve list and the Beach Road/Middle Road site on the confirm list would help to alleviate the tight situation.

The Tampines Grande site will be of particular interest.

It will provide some 362,000 square feet of gross floor area in a region with vacancy at only 2 percent.

As for the residential sector, 14 residential sites on the reserve list can potentially provide approximately 4,000 new homes.

This compares with the twelve sites with a potential supply of 3,620 units provided in the first half of the Government Land Sales Programme 2006.

Some of the notable sites that will yield more than 600 units include Simei Street 4 and at the junction of Bishan Street 22 and 25. - CNA/ir