SUBSCRIBE TO THE BULLETIN TODAY!

Macau: The Las Vegas of Asia

Macau is poised to become one of Asia's hottest tourism destinations as the former Portuguese colony cleans up its image and takes aim at becoming the Las Vegas of Asia. Leading this drive is the territory's Chief Executive Edmond Ho, who is bringing in the two key players who made Las Vegas what it is today, Steve Wynn and Sheldon Adelson.

Mr Wynn was behind the Golden Nugget, arguably Las Vegas's most famous casino, and built up the empire that eventually became MGM Mirage. Among other things, Mr Adelson built Las Vegas's most lavish casino, the US$1.2 billion Venice.

Mr Ho's masterplan includes the construction of seven new mega-entertainment hotels Las Vegas style, to complement the existing six casinos run by Hong Kong tycoon Stanley Ho. The estimated cost of this plan is expected to exceed HK$15 billion and once completed will create a "Macau Strip."

"Four out of every five dollars collected by the Macau Government is from the gaming industry," Allan Zeman, Chairman, Lan Kwai Fong Holdings, said at the Chamber's April 16 roundtable luncheon on Macau's tourism prospects. "And the reason why everyone in Las Vegas is so excited about [opening casinos in] Macau is the fact that the take per table in Macau is nine times the take in Nevada."

Mainland visitors help keep gambling takes high and are the territory's largest tourism market. Out of the 11,887,876 visitors to Macau last year, 5,742,036  or 35.41 percent  were from Mainland China.

Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, Deputy Director, Macau Government Tourist Office, also speaking at the luncheon, said visitor arrivals in the first two months of this year were already up 20.14 percent over the same period last year, and Mainland visitors soared 58.19 percent. For the year as a whole, she expects the strong growth to continue as more Mainland visitors take advantage of the individual travel scheme.

Hong Kong is Macau's second largest market, with 4.6 million visitors last year, followed by Taiwan with just over 1 million, and a very distant Japan with just 85,613 visitors. This mix is not expected to change too much over the short term, but the completion of the Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai bridge is expected to funnel visitors from the Mainland and Hong Kong into Macau much more efficiently and reverse the gradual decline in Hong Kong visitor arrivals.

Mr Zeman estimates that the proposed 29 km bridge will make it possible to drive between Hong Kong and Macau in just 20 minutes, and in effect make each SAR a suburb of the other. The potential opportunities that this link will create are enormous, he says.

"Macau's goal is to be the gaming entertainment capital of Asia," says Mr Zeman. "And this will affect far more than just the gaming side of business."

New hotel-resorts will boost employment in Macau, create new business opportunities for food and beverage businesses, retail, leisure, golf, theatres, business tourism, etc, he added.

Macau is currently in the grips of a development boom as the territory gears up for the 2005 East Asian Games and the tourism opportunities that the event will bring. New tourism products are being added to existing itineraries and Ms Fernandes said her office is also enriching existing products. These include cultural tourism, dining, eco-tourism, the MICE (meeting, incentive, convention and exhibition) market, among others.

If the growth of tourism in Las Vegas is anything to go by, then Macau isn't in danger of running out of visitors anytime soon. Part of Nevada's appeal is that  besides being an adult entertainment mecca  it is also a family vacation destination, says Mr Zeman. 

"People keep asking when is Las Vegas going to be max-out, but people just keep on going," he said. "Last year, 40 million tourists visited Las Vegas and many of those were family visits. Macau is going to be the same for Asia, so I think the future looks very bright and we have an exciting journey ahead of us."



Ms Fernandes    Mr Zeman    Q & A   
Ms Fernandes' Slides >> Mr Zeman's Slides Webcasting