With Marina Bay Sands—the world’s most expensive casino resort—now officially open, expect a shift in Singapore’s nascent gaming landscape
At the June 23rd grand opening ceremony of the US$5.7 billion Marina Bay Sands (MBS), ever-brash Las Vegas Sands Corp (LVS) Chairman Sheldon Adelson declared his integrated resort (IR) would “forever change” Singapore’s image and give the country’s tourism industry a major boost.
Though MBS is now officially open, the property is still experiencing teething troubles. VIP guests checking into the newly opened third hotel tower for the big opening bash complained of long waits to check in, and when they got up to their rooms, they were faced with the challenge of getting ready for the gala dinner without hot water.
Still, the VIP dinner itself went off without a hitch, featuring the requisite Chairman speech and performances by the cast of Las Vegas musical phenomenon Jersey Boys and LVS stalwart Diana Ross, who also performed at the Venetian Macao opening in August 2007. Grammy-award winning singer and former member of Destiny’s Child, Kelly Rowland, performed an outdoor concert for the general public. Climbing relay teams also scaled the façade of one of the hotel towers to entertain the crowds outside.
Throughout MBS, there are tell-tale signs of the rush to complete the mammoth property to schedule, including blotchy paint jobs and unpolished finishes. These are stray details, however, and the kinks will be ironed out over the coming weeks. Judging by the happy faces bopping along to Ms Ross’s closing performance, MBS has cultivated sufficient appeal to counteract the inevitable opening glitches of such a project.
Continental shift
On the eve of the MBS grand opening ceremony, Mr Adelson said he expected 90% of LVS revenue to come from Asia by 2020. The company’s Macau operations already accounted for 73% of its revenue at the end of last year.
Although the finishing touches are still being put on MBS, Mr Adelson is already talking of his desire to open a casino in South Korea, and said he was looking at developing a Las Vegas-style strip complete with luxury hotels and spas in either Italy, Greece or Spain. This follows comments in December that his company is “actively looking” at projects in Japan, Taiwan and India.
A Bloomberg poll of 13 analysts resulted in an average forecast EBITDA [earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization] for MBS of US$329 million in 2010. According to MBS CEO Thomas Arasi, the property attracted close to 500,000 visitors in June. Mr Arasi said he expects MBS will attract 70,000 visitors a day once it is fully open.
In a June 3rd regulatory filing, LVS estimated it will generate as much as US$3 billion in adjusted EBITDA in 2011. The company’s majority-owned Hong Konglisted unit, Sands China, may generate US$1 billion to $1.2 billion in 2010, it added.
Crowd control
The MBS casino is set to feature 500 gaming tables and 1,600 slot machines.
With MBS gearing up, the immediate result seems a tempering in casino traffic at Singapore’s other IR, Resort World Sentosa.
In the weeks after RWS opened on 14th February, the main casino floor at RWS was crowded with local and foreign players to such an extent that when IAG visited on a weekday afternoon, tables were ringed three to four deep by players, and slot machines had very few empty seats. Local players complained of not being able to play at the tables and slots despite having to fork out the casino entry fee of either S$100 per day or S$2,000 per year.
In order to keep locals—who are likely to be the most frequent players—happy, RWS set up an area restricted to Singapore residents on its main gaming floor, dubbed the Orchid Room. With both RWS and MBS opening up more tables and slots, when IAG went for a repeat weekday visit to RWS in June, not only had the crowds greatly diminished around the tables, but it appeared the Orchid Room was more crowded than the rest of the main floor.
Enlightened design
There’s a night-and-day difference between the main gaming floors at MBS and RWS. The RWS casino follows the old school casino design concept of low ceilings and dim lighting, while MBS takes the revolutionary stadium-style design of Sands Macao and makes it even brighter and grander.
Unverified insider reports suggest the RWS casino is still pulling in more high-rollers than MBS, perhaps owing to established relations between VIP players and RWS operator Genting at its Malaysian property, or even that RWS is offering VIPs better incentives. If the Macau market is any guide, however, relationships between casinos and high rollers are hardly loyal, and once MBS hits its stride, there could well be a migration of VIPs away from RWS. Indeed, MBS would seem a more natural habitat for well-heeled Singaporean, Indonesian and Malaysian gamblers, with its downtown location, highend shopping and upscale restaurants.
Big ‘wow’
The key new attraction unveiled at the grand opening of MBS that was not available during the April 27th soft opening is the Sands Skypark, with the pool and observation deck opened to the public on June 25th. At three times the length of an Olympic pool and 200 metres in the air, the SkyPark infinity pool is the largest outdoor pool in the world, and arguably one of the most breathtaking. Infinity pools give the effect that the water extends to the horizon (in this case, the Singapore skyline).
The entire boat-shaped (or bananashaped, according to your point of view) SkyPark is longer than the Eiffel tower laid down, and sits perched atop the property’s three 55-storey hotel towers.
Elements of style
Marina Bay Sands commissioned five well-known artists to create works of art to ‘integrate’ with the buildings. Among these is a 40m-long installation by British sculptor Antony Gormley, made from 16,100 steel rods.
Environmental artist and sculptor Ned Kahn contributes cascading wind arbors to the property’s exterior, and a rain oculus to the roof of the luxury shopping mall. The mall also features an LVS-trademark indoor canal, on which shoppers can ride along in Sampan boats styled on traditional Chinese vessels from the 17th century.
Meanwhile, artist Chongbin Zheng created Rising Forest, which consists of 83 three metre high pots with trees in them. The pots were so big the artist had to build a customised kiln the size of a small building to make them in.
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Plenty of room
When complete, MBS will feature 2,560 hotel rooms. Pictured below is a selection of some of the tasteful and spacious interiors on offer.
Unhappy conference campers
The 120,000 sq. m convention and exhibition centre at Marina Bay Sands has become the subject of a heated legal dispute between MBS and a group of lawyers who held a conference at the venue. According to Bloomberg, Las Vegas Sands Corp (LVS) Chairman Sheldon Adelson said he was ready to settle “any day they want” with the lawyers’ group that accused it of using their conference to hasten its gaming license.
“We much rather make love than war,” Adelson said in a Bloomberg Television interview in Singapore. “We tried to settle with them; they didn’t want to and were quite unreasonable.”
Marina Bay Sands sued the lawyers after they withheld payment for the first conference it hosted. IPBA 2010 Pte, on behalf of the Inter-Pacific Bar Association conference, countersued for misrepresenting a “complete disaster” as a world-class venue. Sands used the attendance of Singapore Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew at the event to speed up its casino and occupation permits, according to the IPBA lawsuit.
“People should know that there will be little glitches in an opening of a new property,” said Mr Adelson. “They couldn’t stand even one glitch.”
Delegates at the conference complained of unfinished rooms, power failures, closed facilities and lost luggage, and the Bar Association’s annual general meeting discussed an “unprecedented” motion empowering it to sue Sands, according to IPBA’s lawsuit.
The conference was held May 2nd-5th.
“We never would have sued them if they didn’t return the checks,” Adelson said. “I don’t know about in Singapore, but in the US it’s a criminal offense to return a check or to write a check that you don’t intend to cover.”
“Now believe me, we make every effort,” Adelson said. “We send employees in to live in the rooms, to try out the toilets, sinks, lights, drapes, to make sure everything is working as it’s supposed to and that’s what we did. But in any new property and in any ongoing property, you always have something that happens.”
Meanwhile, the IPBA organizing committee said MBS never formally apologized for the problems encountered during the conference. MBS executive George Tanajisevich met IPBA President Lee Suet Fern once after the conference and didn’t make any settlement offer, the committee said. Lee, the daughter-in-law of Lee Kuan Yew, chaired the conference.
“Since then we have not heard from Sands except through their lawsuit and sound bites to the media,” according to an IPBA statement.
Food for the eyes, mind and gut
Marina Bay Sands will boast restaurants from a line up of celebrity chefs, including Mario Batali (New York), Daniel Boulud (New York), Wolfgang Puck (Los Angeles), Santi Santamaria (Barcelona), Guy Savoy (Paris) and Tetsuya Wakuda (Sydney).
Chefs Santi Santamaria, Guy Savoy and Tetsuya Wakuda will have their restaurants on the mezzanine layer of the casino while Mario Batali, Daniel Boulud and Wolfgang Puck will have signature restaurants situated near the two Marina Bay Sands Theatres. Each of the six chefs is personally involved in the concepts, menus, and interior design of the six different restaurants.
When fully completed, MBS will feature several other dining venues, an Art Science Museum, an outdoor event plaza and two floating crystal pavilions, one of which will house a flagship Louis Vuittion boutique.
The Walt Disney musical “The Lion King” has been delayed because the building is not yet ready. The stage show will open in the first quarter of 2011, according to LVS.
