AbstractAugmented Dickey and Fuller and Kwiatkowski et al. tests are used to test for the non‐stationarity property of inbound tourists from 12 main source countries of Singapore. The tests provide evidence of stationarity for each of these countries, except India, Malaysia and the USA. The results for these three countries are inconclusive. The results demonstrate that exogenous shocks, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome and terrorist attacks, mainly have temporary negative effects on inbound tourists from the main source countries. The results also imply that the promotional campaign of Singapore and neighbouring countries can only have transitory positive or negative effects on the tourism industry of Singapore. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.