The head of MGM Resorts International’s Japan integrated resort project says the success of the ongoing World Expo in Osaka has shown that the site can already handle 250,000 visitors per day – a “very positive” result as the company prepares to accelerate development of MGM Osaka.
Ed Bowers, MGM’s President of Global Development, described the World Expo – located alongside the IR site on Osaka’s Yumeshima Island – as “surprisingly successful” in comments made during a panel session on Asia growth opportunities at trade show G2E in Las Vegas this week.
The World Expo launched on 13 April 2025 and will officially close next week on 13 October. Its six-month run has welcomed around 28 million visitors with a notable uptick in recent months, including reports of almost 250,000 people per day during the final weeks before closure.
“We now have more than 100 cranes on our site, which is opposite the current World Expo,” Bowers said. “The World Expo has I think been quite successful, surprisingly successful, and it has benefited us in the sense that it’s demonstrated that we can get 250,000 people a day to this site. It’s also demonstrated that people know where our site is. So that’s all very positive.”
MGM, the only operator to be approved by Japan’s central government to develop an IR with casino gaming, broke ground on its US$10 billion MGM Osaka development in April, although land preparatory works began in late 2023.
Once complete in 2030, as per the current timeline, the property will feature 2,500 hotel rooms across three hotel brands, 730,000 square feet of MICE space and tourism facilities to showcase the best of Osaka and Japan.
The consortium building MGM Osaka counts MGM Resorts and local partner ORIX as its major investors with around a 40% interest each, alongside 22 minority shareholders.
Bowers said Wednesday that the consortium is now fully focussed on construction as well as pre-opening efforts, with a view to hiring some 10,000 people over the coming years.
“Everything in Japan takes time – a lot of time – so there is plenty to do there,” he explained. “We have a fairly large team of people working on this project, I would say 60 or even more. Between both partners, we’ve probably got 120 to 150 people already working on the project. That number will gradually increase and we will gradually put people into the joint venture vehicle that has been established. From there we will gradually move operational people into the joint venture and then the operations will start to operate on their own.
“It’s going to be an interesting next few years. Our biggest challenge is going to be hiring approximately 10,000 people. Japan is a very tough place to hire people. It’s frankly difficult to hire 10 people or 50 people, so that’s going to be our number one focus over the next few years is developing plans to hire those people.”
Bowers noted that building not only an integrated resort in Japan but also a development of such scale would inevitably throw up challenges but said the company was confident of completing construction by late 2029 and maintaining its scheduled 2030 opening timeline.
“We are continuing to work with brand-new regulators in a brand-new market and doing many first-time things,” he continued.
“It’s certainly one of the biggest development projects in Japan and we are hiring the most people in Japan that pretty much anyone’s ever hired, so I think we’re going to break some records.
“But we’re up to the task and we will be continuing to work very hard on this along with our partner ORIX over the next few years and engaging significantly with not only the local companies who are our minority shareholders but also local companies who will be working in the business itself and local suppliers and local people.
“We look forward very much to participating in the activities that are happening.”
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