The role has been vacant since STB restructured the organisation early this year.
Margaret Teo, STB's director of service quality, was roped in to cover the role, putting on the backburner the appointment of a full-time corporate comms director.
Teo has now been tasked to head up a new division, food & beverage, as director. Past trends show that visitors spend some S$700 million (US$397.5 million) a year in visitor expenditure on F&B.
Tan, meanwhile, joins at a time when Singapore tries to recover fully from the Sars impact. "There has never been a more important time to strengthen communication channels as the organisation and industry unite on all fronts to combat a national crisis and to bring about exciting changes," she said.
Corporate comms now covers media relations and corporate relations, unlike its predecessor, marketing communications, headed by Yeow Mei Sin, which covered both destination and corporate communication. Yeow left STB at the end of last year.