The city’s gaming operators are aiming for a “moderate” diversification – such was the main message delivered by the six concessionaires and sub-concessionaires at yesterday’s Forum on Macao Integrated Tourism and Leisure Enterprises and Corporate Social Responsibility.
All the operators underlined to the Deputy Director of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government, Yao Jian, that they were “patriotic” as well as continuing to “work together with the Macau government” to achieve the non-gaming goals underlined in the five-year plan of the local government.
Melco Crown played host to the event, held at Studio City, with its chairman and CEO Lawrence Ho Yau Lung noting that the operator has been “trying to take the pioneer position” in the non-gaming offerings, although not commenting further to the press on how the MSAR would “occupy the first ranking in terms of the entertaining outlets in the world.”
Unlike Melco Crown, which already has two properties on the Cotai Strip, operator MGM Macau is only expected to open its Cotai property in the second half of this year, with its CEO Grant Bowie noting that it is open to collaboration with the other operators.
“I don’t think we all need to keep outbuilding each other,” said the CEO on the sidelines of the event referring in particular to exhibition and conference space. “I think what we need to do is work to drive Macau. We want to collaborate with our colleagues and our competitors on Cotai. They have bigger venues, we have rooms, we have our own unique characteristics.”
Newcomers
While SJM’s Marketing Director, Bailey Sin, stated that regarding the group’s property in Cotai – slated to open next year and the last to arrive on the Strip – in the “first half of 2018 we will have different parts of Grand Lisboa Palace being opened . . . [which will] . . . create 10,000 opportunities for employment – more than half of which is non-gaming.”
Regarding the opening date of the Grand Lisboa Palace, the group’s Managing Director, Angela Leong, commented that the date would not be affected by the fire which took place at the property and that “work has already returned to normal.”
When asked about what she thought about her ranking in the recent Forbes ‘The World’s Billionaires’ ranking, at number 427, with an estimated wealth of US$4.1 billion (MOP32.8 billion), Ms. Leong was grateful for the ranking but noted she doesn’t pay much attention to it.
Regarding the next upcoming opening on the Strip, MGM Cotai, CEO Grant Bowie noted that the property is still expected to open on time, in the “second half of this year,” pointing out “we’ve already put our golden lion on the Strip, so most importantly MGM is coming to Cotai”.
“It’s going well, but it’s very complicated,” commented Bowie regarding the construction, noting that “we’re going to work extremely hard and that’s obviously our target and we want to be open this year; that’s important for us and I think it’s important for Macau.”
However, the opening date isn’t everything, said Bowie.
“The key issue is we need to build a facility that keeps evolving. It’s not about what you have on day one, it’s how you keep growing it,” commented the MGM head.
At the end of the day, however, it’s not always in the hands of the operator, noted Bowie.
“The customer will choose where they want to be in the end. If you make it hard for them, they’ll just choose not to go to you. And so hopefully we can all continue to collaborate: improve the transportation, improve the distribution opportunities around the Cotai area.”
However, in the event of a downturn in the economy, Professor Zeng Zhonglu of the Gaming Teaching and Research Centre of Macao Polytechnic Institute points out that “we need to pay attention to what we are going to focus on in the future,” noting that “change is inevitable – but we need to learn from our lesson […] understand the spending pattern of our customers” and look “eight, nine years into the future” to predict how to act now.
