MACAU - Casino
magnate Sheldon Adelson has a vision of Asia's Las
Vegas on Cotai, reclaimed land joining Macau's
Coloane and Taipa islands. Adelson's US$2 billion
Venetian Macau Casino Resort will anchor this new
version of the Las Vegas Strip, with 20 more
resorts lining the wide boulevard. Macau gambling
kingpin Stanley Ho's City of Dreams complex will
provide a sleek, ultramodern counterpoint to
Adelson's classical Venetian. As a bonus, Vegas
rival Steve Wynn will be stuck in Macau's
downtown, sandwiched between a pair of the Ho
family's new hotels and Adelson's Sands casino,
the first to bring Las Vegas glitz to Macau.
Macau, returned to Chinese sovereignty
under the "one country, two systems" principle in
1999 after nearly 450 years of Portuguese rule,
has many charms. China's emperor granted Portugal
this strategic outpost at the mouth of the Pearl
River in the mid-16th century in exchange for
controlling piracy - the kind
that intrigued Gilbert and
Sullivan, not the kind that infuriates Microsoft
and Disney. Macau's role as a gateway between east
and west is evident from its 25 sites placed on
the United Nations World Heritage List in July,
including Chinese temples, Catholic churches,
hilltop forts and lighthouses. Macanese cuisine
brings together Portugal's sardines and China's
swine to the rhythm of vinho verde. The
place is a delightfully unhurried change of pace
from the rat race of Hong Kong and the drab grind
of southern China.
But Macau's 20 million
visitors overwhelmingly come simply to gamble at
the casino tables that the Portuguese legalized
158 years ago. For 40 years until 2002, Stanley
Ho's Sociedade do Jogos de Macau (SJM, Portuguese
for Macau Gaming Society) held a monopoly on
casinos. The introduction of US operators Wynn
Resorts and Adelson's Las Vegas Sands (LVS) has
upped the stakes, and the revenue. Casino winnings
grew 40% in 2004 and this year's projected 20%
rise will push the figure beyond $6 billion,
surpassing the take in Las Vegas. LVS averages
$879,452 a day at its Venetian casino in Las
Vegas. At its Sands Macau casino, opened in May
2004, it averages $2.36 million. But that's just
the beginning.
Asia's Las Vegas in
three years LVS is master developer for a
stretch of Cotai that will have seven new resort
hotels in the first phase opening in 2007. LVS
chairman and chief executive officer Adelson is so
excited about the concept that he's trademarked
the names "Cotai Strip" and "Asia's Las Vegas."
LVS chief operating officer William Weidner says,
"It took 75 years for Las Vegas to emerge as an
international destination. Our intention is to
replicate that feat in less than three years."
Today, Cotai is about six square
kilometers of empty lots, construction fences and
the Macau Dome, an elliptical dark glass and steel
frame structure built for next month's East Asian
Games, that looks like the shell of a giant insect
fallen from outer space. But put on your bug
repellent and imagine 2008.
The Venetian
Macau - "Bringing the charm of Venice and the
glamour of Las Vegas to you" according to the
billboards surrounding its million square meter
construction site - will feature 3,000 rooms in a
32-story tower. In addition to its signature
canals with the gondolas, the resort will include
92,000 square meters of conference and exhibition
space (Adelson made his initial fortune running
the annual COMDEX technology fairs), a 2,000-seat
theater, a 15,000-seat arena (at last, a home for
Macau's basketball and hockey teams!), and a
retail mall measuring nearly 80,000 square meters.
Venetian anchor The Venetian
will anchor a one kilometer stretch of resorts,
according to the Sands' plan. Phase one includes
six more branded resort hotels, including a Four
Seasons, a Hilton, an Intercontinental and a
Marriott, with a total of 10,000 rooms. Just
beyond that, a partnership between Stanley Ho's
son Lawrence and Australian Kerry Packer's
Publishing and Broadcasting Limited is building
"City of Dreams", including three more hotels with
2,000 rooms, plus hundreds of serviced apartments,
its own shopping mall and a 4,000-seat theater.
Those buildings will seem to float in a lagoon
that also provides atmosphere for an underwater
casino.
A bridge connecting China's Zhuhai
to Cotai will include a border gate, giving the
strip first crack at a large chunk of the mainland
tourist trade that comprises more than half of the
visitors to Macau. Within a decade, Cotai could be
the home to up to 25 resort-casinos. It could even
expand to neighboring islands that belong to the
mainland.
That's added to the construction
boom already underway in downtown Macau, the
current center of gambling and business action.
Wynn, MGM Mirage (in partnership with Stanley Ho's
daughter Pansy), and Ho's Hotel Lisboa are all
developing new projects at the southern end of
Macau, near the Sands casino. Macau Fisherman's
Wharf opens this month, across the road from the
Sands, near the Hong Kong ferry terminal. The
project includes a children's fort, and replicas
of a Tang dynasty, Rome's Colosseum, 19th-century
port towns, and a 40-meter-tall volcano with a
thrill ride through the lava. Retailing,
restaurants, and convention facilities are also
part of the mix.
In all, at least $12
billion is pouring into Macau for new hotels,
facilities and attractions. There's a market of
more than 100 million people within driving (and
even walking) distance, a billion within two hours
flying distance and three billion within five
hours. Last year, China eased travel restrictions,
making it possible for people from neighboring
provinces Beijing and Shanghai (the highest income
regions) to visit Macau individually, rather than
as part of group tours.
Holistic value
proposition To attract a bigger piece of
this market, Macau needs appeal beyond gambling.
"The Venetian and Wynn Macau will be the first two
properties developed in Macau that provide a
holistic tourism value proposition," gaming
industry consultant Jonathan V Galaviz explains.
"When these two properties open, you will see a
significant shift in the consumer profile that
visits Macau. Instead of the gaming-centric
visitor [only], you will see the middle market
tourist include Macau on their tourist agenda."
For example, shopping tops the agenda for
most mainland tourists, according to surveys, and
new developments will move Macau into the retail
major leagues. Cartier opened a Macau branch
earlier this year in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel's
refurbished shopping arcade, a sign of two trends
that will accelerate. Prestige brands are
discovering Macau, and hotels are discovering the
importance of retailing to boost revenue.
Cotai will lead the way to make Macau a
contender in the Asian MICE market - meetings,
incentives, conventions and exhibitions. "There's
nothing like Cotai in the region," Macau Business
magazine founder Paulo Azevedo notes. "If you have
an international operator like Venetian pushing
the MICE angle, it can work."
Certainly,
Sheldon Adelson, Steve Wynn and Stanley Ho have
made fortunes in gambling, and they're all betting
it will work.
Gary LaMoshi has
worked as a broadcast producer and print writer
and editor in the US and Asia. Longtime editor of
investor rights advocate eRaider.com, he's also a
contributor to Slate and Salon.com.
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