Inside Asian Gaming

JANUARY 2018 INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 21 COVER STORY Malaysian trained as a physician who came to Cambodia in the early 1990s as part of Malaysia’s Prosper Thy Neighbor policy, says. “It’s a very exciting time with all of the FDI [foreign direct investment] and movement of people from China to here.” Naga associate Bassaka Air facilitates that movement with three weekly flights each from Changsha, Xian, Hangzhou and Tsingtao, mainland China cities that have fewer direct international flight options than Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Bassaka also flies daily to Kuala Lumpur and twice weekly to Macau. Naga works with state-owned China International Travel Service to create tours for mainland travelers that include Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, site of the Angkor Wat temple complex, a 40 minute Bassaka Air flight from the capital. Naga also engaged CITS subsidiary China Duty Free Group as principal tenant and leasing agent for NagaCity Walk. Those initiatives are part of making NagaWorld “China ready” with more Mandarin speaking staff and food options that appeal to mainland guests. Naga executives stress that they are aiming at tourists and not promoting gambling. “We can develop our market and expand mass market, certainly China front and center, because we have cemented a very good relationship, we are very sensitive to issues of promotion of gaming in China and very much adhere to and strictly follow those guidelines when we deal with China – and we do that through the vehicle of tourism and building relationships,” McNally says. Naga emphasizes it’s not abandoning its roots in ASEAN, a market of 650 million. Naga2 opened with a gala ASEAN themed ceremony and dinner attended by Cambodian ministers and regional diplomats, featuring entertainment by four ASEAN divas who earlier paraded through NagaCity Walk in a selfie and social media frenzy. “We are in the heart of Indochina and by no means deviating from our mission statement of being the best entertainment destination in the Mekong region. Our focus will remain on the immediate area, particularly on the mass market,” McNally says. But Naga, like the rest of the regional hospitality business, can’t ignore China. At the Naga2 briefing, Dr Chen revealed an ambition to curl Naga properties dragon-like around China. Next up, Naga’s casino under development in Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East. Dr Chen cited discussions with officials in Mongolia and Kazakhstan to build resorts there. Those resorts wouldn’t necessarily feature gambling – Dr Chen’s holdings in Malaysia include non-gaming Nexus Resort Karambunai in Borneo’s Sabah state – but would focus on Chinese travelers. And in Phnom Penh, executives say, they are already thinking about Naga3.