Merlin Entertainments Plc, the private-equity backed owner of Madame Tussauds, will invest about $20 million to develop attractions in Singapore, including a new Madame Tussauds wax museum, as rising income in Asia fuels consumer spending on leisure activities and entertainment.

The new museum, which is the company’s eighth offering of its kind in Asia, will seek to attract visitors from markets including Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, China and India when it opens in the second half of next year, the company’s divisional director for Asia, Meike Schulze, said.

Madame Tussauds Singapore will be the newest addition to Sentosa, a five square-kilometer resort island that includes a casino and features Southeast Asia’s only Universal Studios theme park. Visitor arrivals to the city-state rose 8.7% to 11.7 million in the first nine months this year from a year ago, figures from the Singapore Tourism Board show.

“Singapore is already an established leisure destination in Asia. It is an easy reach to affluent, Asian middle-class families that are not just more mobile, but also looking for quality attractions. This is forming quite a good home for our attractions,” Schulze said.

The museum will be customized to reflect the culture of its Singapore and Southeast Asia location in its design and choice of life-like wax figures.

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