Loo Chok Nan, who owns a hamper store in the city, said orders for Lunar New Year, which falls on Feb. 17-18, began coming in about two weeks ago from customers in both Malaysia and Singapore.

“So far, we have delivered at least 300 hampers, including to customers in Singapore,” he told Malaysian newspaper The Star. “We expect the number to go up, especially in the two weeks before the festival.”

Similarly, Ng Kok Yeo, owner of a plant nursery, started receiving more customers earlier this month and has been shipping plants to them for the last two weeks. “Lunar New Year shoppers from Singapore came early this time,” he said.

Johor Bahru is the capital of Malaysia’s southernmost state of Johor. It sits just across the border from Singapore and is connected to the city-state via the Johor-Singapore Causeway. The crossing sees heavy daily traffic from Malaysians commuting to work and Singaporeans seeking more affordable goods and services, especially during holidays.

A pickup in Singaporean shoppers to Johor Bahru would be an improvement from the quieter year-end period last month, when business owners in the city reported a sharp drop in customers across the border. The dry spell was attributed to a stronger ringgit and rainy weather.

At the time, some Singaporeans said they were delaying their visit until closer to the Lunar New Year for festive shopping, according to AsiaOne.

Festive travel surge

Besides Singaporeans, the Lunar New Year period typically draws large numbers of Malaysians living in Singapore back across the border, leading to a sharp spike in travel demand.

Tickets for the Keretapi Tanah Melayu Shuttle Tebrau service between Singapore’s Woodlands Checkpoint and Johor Bahru Sentral are already sold out from Feb. 13 to 15. Bus fares and airfares from the city-state to various parts of Malaysia also rose sharply during the holidays, The Straits Times reported earlier this month.

Malaysian bus operator Causeway Link said it expects heavy crowds and strong ticket demand during the peak festive season.

Last year, more than three million people passed through the Woodlands and Tuas checkpoints during the Lunar New Year period from Jan. 24 to 30, 2025, according to Singapore’s Immigration and Checkpoints Authority.

In the first seven months of 2025, Singaporeans made up over 78% of Johor’s foreign visitors, or 11.27 million out of 14.4 million. The figures were 17.5 million out of 22.07 million for the whole of 2024.