{"id":7643,"date":"2014-07-10T15:32:01","date_gmt":"2014-07-10T15:32:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/2014\/07\/10\/macau-allure-may-fade-as-tourists-go-farther-mgm-china-head-says\/"},"modified":"2014-07-10T15:32:01","modified_gmt":"2014-07-10T15:32:01","slug":"macau-allure-may-fade-as-tourists-go-farther-mgm-china-head-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/2014\/07\/10\/macau-allure-may-fade-as-tourists-go-farther-mgm-china-head-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Macau allure may fade as tourists go farther, MGM China head says"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"\"
\n\tThe lights from Wynn Macau and Casino Lisboa reflect off the lake on Spet. 12, 2007. (Jeff Scheid\/Las Vegas Review-Journal)<\/span><\/p>\n

\tBy VINICY CHAN
\n\tBLOOMBERG NEWS
\n\tHONG KONG \u2014 Macau is facing threats to its growth from China\u2019s slowing economy and greater foreign competition, escalating the need for the world\u2019s largest gambling hub to diversify from its casino gaming roots.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cI\u2019d say the slowdown in the economy and the fact that now the foreign destinations might become competitors\u201d are the biggest risks to Macau\u2019s growth, Pansy Ho, co-chairwoman of MGM China Holdings, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

\tAs Chinese tourists travel more frequently and farther afield, the city could gradually lose its appeal, said Ho, nicknamed \u201ccasino queen\u201d by local media. \u201cWe\u2019re already beginning to see that the customers coming through our doors are more demanding, they now know how to differentiate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tChinese tourists have been powering the growth of Macau which leapfrogged the Strip in 2006 to become the world\u2019s largest gambling hub. Casino operators such as Ho\u2019s MGM China and Sands China have added shops, restaurants and entertainment shows to draw mainland travelers as high-stakes gamblers cut spending amid a cooling Chinese economy.<\/p>\n

\tHo, whose father, Stanley Ho, held a 40-year gambling monopoly in Macau until 2002, is helping lead a drive to transform the city into a global tourism destination. The 51-year-old sees the need to cut the territory\u2019s reliance on gaming halls that raked in $45 billion of casino revenue in 2013.<\/p>\n

\tThe city has been affected by a slowdown in gambling growth in recent months as bettors cut spending amid a cooling economy and a nationwide crackdown on corruption in China. China\u2019s President Xi Jinping\u2019s clampdown on lavish spending has hurt sales of luxury goods such as Rolex watches and Prada bags.<\/p>\n

\tadding local flair<\/p>\n

\tMacau\u2019s July gross gaming revenue could dip as much as 11 percent from a year earlier, Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Billy Ng wrote in a report Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\tMacau\u2019s casinos have borrowed from other cultures to re-create features in the past and now mainland customers can afford to travel overseas to experience the original, \u201creal things,\u201d said Ho, who has a net worth of $4.9 billion according to Bloomberg\u2019s Billionaires Index.<\/p>\n

\tTo draw more Chinese patrons, MGM China, the Macau unit of MGM Resorts International, has been adding playing up the Macanese and Portuguese influences at its properties, Ho said.<\/p>\n

\tSands China competes with Italian singing gondolas and Galaxy Entertainment Group with Parisian cabarets.<\/p>\n

\tMacau is the only place in China where casinos are legal.<\/p>\n

\tMainland Chinese tourists accounted for two-thirds of the total visitors to the former Portuguese enclave in the first quarter.<\/p>\n

\ta little friendly competition<\/p>\n

\tHo is extending her family\u2019s presence to Hengqin in China, an island next to Macau that\u2019s connected by a bridge and is earmarked for nongaming purposes.<\/p>\n

\tShe will achieve that with Shun Tak Holdings Ltd., a property to transportation conglomerate set up by her father in 1972 and now run by her.<\/p>\n

\tStanley Ho, 92, held a gaming monopoly in Macau that helped build SJM Holdings into Asia\u2019s biggest casino company. The Macau government opened up the market in 2002 to foreign rivals such as Sheldon Adelson\u2019s Las Vegas Sands Corp. and Steve Wynn\u2019s Wynn Resorts Ltd.<\/p>\n

\tWhile Pansy leads Shun Tak, her younger brother Lawrence Ho, whom she described as a \u201cfriendly competitor,\u201d has gone his own way. He set up Melco Crown Entertainment in a joint venture with Australian billionaire James Packer.<\/p>\n

\tjapan eyed as next market<\/p>\n

\tThe company is building casinos in Macau and the Philippines, and is keen on expanding into Japan, the world\u2019s third-largest economy. It plans to invest some $5 billion in Japan if the country legalizes casinos, said the Melco Crown co-chairman and chief executive officer.<\/p>\n

\tLawrence\u2019s endeavor to push into Japan is part of his strategy to expand overseas as he sees constraints such as land and labor shortage at home.<\/p>\n

\tMelco Crown, which currently operates two casinos in Macau, has almost doubled its revenue to $5.09 billion in 2013 from $2.64 billion in 2010. SJM had $11.3 billion revenue last year from 20 casinos in Macau.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cLawrence really wants to grow his gaming enterprise beyond Macau and grow his portfolio,\u201d said Pansy, his elder sister. \u201cIn my case, I\u2019d like to really do more for the general well-being of Macau, promoting Macau as a destination.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Replies:<\/h3>\n

No replies were posted for this topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The lights from Wynn Macau and Casino Lisboa reflect off the lake on Spet. 12, 2007. (Jeff Scheid\/Las Vegas Review-Journal) By VINICY CHAN BLOOMBERG NEWS HONG KONG \u2014 Macau is facing threats to its growth from China\u2019s slowing economy and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}