Sands China President Dr Wilfred Wong says Macau’s concessionaires will do their best to help increase foreign visitation to the SAR, but just how successful they will be remains to be seen.
His comments form part of a lengthy interview with Inside Asian Gaming to feature on the cover of our July 2023 issue, out this Friday, in which he discusses Sands China’s development plans under its new 10-year concession and how he sees the market evolving.
Asked whether the government’s stated goal of foreign visitation reaching 10% of all visitor arrivals was achievable, Dr Wong said, “You can’t change something overnight. The fact is we have been very dependent on travelers from the Chinese mainland and from Hong Kong.
“But we are now doing a lot of promotions overseas. We are expanding our overseas representative network, we are bringing in wholesalers, tour operators to come and experience Macau, hoping they will help introduce Macau to the world. Now, this is a long-term goal – 10% is not today and it’s not tomorrow. It is the long-term.
“And I believe that with all six [concessionaires] pooling our resources together … I think all this counts, and hopefully over time with all the effort that we put in, we will gradually increase the number of foreign visitors to Macau. Whether we achieve 9% or 10% or 11%, we just try and do our best.”
While time will tell how successful Macau can be in appealing to a global audience, Dr Wong said the early signs were encouraging with a rebound of travel to Macau both from China and across Asia more generally since the easing of border restrictions in January.
“What we [have seen] is that the people that we know who are high-rollers, VIPs, they’re now coming back directly to us instead of going through junkets or agents like in the past. We’re bringing in these people from other parts of the world too – Southeast Asia, Japan, Korea,” he said.
“Really, this fits very well into the government’s wish that we should try and promote Macau overseas. We have been using private jets, and we have been doing a lot more overseas promotion, using our overseas offices to really try and get these customers here.”
Dr Wong also noted that Sands China was well placed to capitalize on Macau’s changing customer demographics following the collapse of the VIP junket industry.
“The staple of the casino now is actually the mass and premium mass people, which we have also been developing,” he said.
“Even in the past, we were the leader in mass gaming – we have 30% of the market share. Overall GGR: we used to have 23% but with the results of the first quarter, you see that we’ve increased that to 27%. I think that is all a result of the market changing shape, that there is more mass gaming than VIP gaming and that’s the segment that has recovered the fastest.
“And therefore, with our facilities, with our large room inventory, we have been able to capture that mass and premium mass market.”
The full interview with Dr Wong will be published this Friday on asgam.com.
