The average cost per person for such tours was 130 yuan, with prices dependent on what customers wanted to see, she said.
The 24-year-old claimed she removed the listing on Wednesday as the campus was getting too crowded with tourists.
She said she used to provide tours for a tour company, but while the company charged 350 yuan per person, she would only get 50 to 80 yuan.
She acknowledged that her tours occupied a “grey region”.
“Big business behaviour may not be allowed, but for us it’s just two to four persons each time,” said the postgraduate student, who noted that all of the tour groups they had taken had been tourists from China.
“Without us, the parents and their children may also rush [around] the school everywhere, so I think [our tours are] not a bad thing,” she added.
The postgraduate student noted that one of the group’s biggest selling points was that she and the other postgraduate students, which included doctoral students, could tell parents and their children about the application process and how they got into NUS.
NUS retained its eighth position in the latest Britain-based Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings 2025 and is the top-ranked among Asian universities, while Nanyang Technological University (NTU) was ranked 15th.
NUS referred This Week in Asia to an email it sent to students on Wednesday from Associate Provost of Undergraduate Education Daniel Goh. The university informed students it was “closely monitoring the influx of tourists during the summer travel season of Asian countries” and was implementing measures to manage visitor traffic and reduce disruptions to teaching and student activities.
It launched a two-month pilot Visitor Centre initiative from August 5 to September 30 involving 40 paid undergraduate students who lead guided tours on campus. These students had guided more than 25 tour groups and about 500 tourists over the first two weeks of the initiative, Goh said.
Goh also reminded all students and staff not to use their card access to help visitors gain entry to restricted areas including student residences, laboratories and classrooms. Students or staff found doing so will be subject to disciplinary action.
NUS students have also raised concerns about the increase in visitor numbers.
“There’s definitely been an influx of Chinese tourists on campus, and students are not happy about it,” said a fourth-year arts undergraduate who declined to be named. “The two main concerns are the inability to find seats at the canteens, and the extremely crowded internal shuttle bus services.”
The student, 24, noted that over the summer break, the gantries on the first and fourth levels of the Central Library were left open. They were previously only accessible by scanning matriculation cards.
Undergraduate Ryan Tan said Chinese tourists visited the university year-round and this picked up during China’s school holiday period from July to August.
“The unhappiness has always been here. Apart from the congestion issues, the bad behaviour does affect people as well, such as … throwing rocks at tortoises in ponds,” Tan said.
In February, local media reported that NUS and NTU had introduced measures to manage an influx of tourists on campus after students complained of overcrowded buses and eateries, and large crowds taking up seats on campus, among other things.
An NTU spokesman on Wednesday said while the university welcomed visitors to its campus, the needs of its faculty, staff and students came first.
In February, NTU clamped down on tour groups on campus, with local media reporting that the move was due to an “influx of tourists”.
According to the NTU spokesman, all visitors are expected to strictly observe campus rules, including no-stopping zones for vehicles, and keep only to public areas. Visitors are also not allowed to access restricted academic, research and residential areas.