Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | February 2009 4 Editorial Editor and Publisher Kareem Jalal Director João Costeira Varela Business Development Manager Matt Phillips Operations Manager José Abecasis Contributors Michael Grimes, Desmond Lam Steve Karoul, I. Nelson Rose Richard Marcus, Shenée Tuck Andrew MacDonald James J. Hodl William R. Eadington Graphic Designer Brenda Chao Photography Ike Inside Asian Gaming is published by Must Read Publications Ltd Suite 1907, AIA Tower, 215A-301 Av. Comercial de Macau - Macau Tel: (853) 6646 0795 For subscription enquiries, please email subs@asgam.com For advertising enquiries, please email ads@asgam.com or call: (853) 6646 0795 www.asgam.com Printed by Unique Network Printing Factory Ltd. Tel: (853) 2828 2832 Fax: (853) 2828 2830 E-mail: unique@macau.ctm.net João Manuel Costa Antunes, the cheerful director of the Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO), managed something of a minor miracle by speaking in public recently for more than an hour about the territory’s visitor market without once mentioning the ‘c’ word—i.e., casinos. Actually, he did mention casinos once, but only to highlight the fact he hadn’t talked about them earlier. “The casinos do a very good job of marketing themselves. They don’t need MGTO’s help,” observed Mr Antunes at the launch of his organisation’s annual report for 2008. He did not allude to the fact that direct marketing of gambling and casinos to Chinese citizens is illegal in China. Gambling on culture It’s possible to argue that with Beijing still imposing travel restrictions on its citizens wishing to visit Macau, it’s politically more expedient to push the idea of the casino hub as a World Heritage centre as befitting its UNESCO status. The number of visitors to Macau from Thailand and Singapore did admittedly rise 81 percent and 41 percent respectively in 2008, though when one looks more closely at the figures one sees it’s from a very low baseline. In 2007, there were 140,749 visitors fromThailand—only 0.52 percent of the total 26.9 million visitors that year. There were 189,657 people coming from Singapore—0.7 percent of Macau’s total 2007 arrivals. Mr Antunes was also enthusiastic about the possibility that in 2009 Macau could attract more travellers from Vietnam and Indonesia, which he described as “large, very interesting markets”. Unsure bet No amount of talking up the prospects of luring visitors from the likes of Vietnamand Indonesia in the coming 12 months can though obscure the fact that Macau is overwhelmingly a China- focused playground and overwhelmingly a hard gambling market. The idea that visitors from Hanoi in Vietnam will be willing to spend nearly two hours on a plane (assuming they can get a direct flight to Macau, rather than having to travel via Hong Kong) to go and look at 16th and 17th century Portuguese catholic churches is a little hard to swallow. In case anyone had forgotten, Vietnam has some western colonial architecture of its own. St Joseph’s cathedral in Hanoi looks from the outside like a scaled down version of Notre Dame in Paris. And the first Catholic missionaries visited Vietnam from Portugal at the beginning of the 16th century, long before the French put in an appearance as the regional colonial overlords. Even assumingVietnamese and Indonesian travellers have the cash and the inclination to come to Macau for the casinos; VIP and mass market gamblers from such secondary Asian economies are likely to be hit just as hard if not harder by the economic slow down than VIP and mainstream players from China. Vietnammay seem at first glance a promising market for Macau given that Vietnamese citizens are not allowed to gamble in that country’s few official casinos. In reality many high net worth Vietnamese (the target market) often have access to a foreign passport. They also have access to casinos much closer to home along Vietnam’s border with Cambodia. For those Vietnamese wanting something a little less rustic and more VIP-focused, there’s NagaWorld in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh and the planned Angkor Park Resort near the Angkor Wat temple site outside Siem Reap. Within a few years Vietnam is likely to have its own integrated gaming resort in the form of the Ho Tram Strip, which will carry MGM MIRAGE branding. In addition there’s the prospect that integrated gaming resorts opening in Singapore from the end of this year and early next will also attract visitors from Vietnam. Stop start Macau has suffered from the flighty attitude of some regional budget airlines in its attempts to build markets outside Greater China. A number of carriers have started direct flights from Southeast Asia to Macau only to cancel them at short notice because of fuel price rises or other commercial worries. As a result customers in the relevant target markets have had little chance to familiarise themselves with the Macau ‘product’. The cancellation of air links at short notice has also denied travel agents the opportunity to market Macau consistently and effectively. The Macau government could of course choose to offer subsidies to these airlines to help diversify the territory’s visitor profile, but so far appears to prefer to let market forces run their course. Mr Antunes—perfectly reasonably, for a man in his position—appealed to the assembled media at the press briefing not to talk Macau into a recession. There’s a difference, however, between positive thinking and blind faith. Inside Asian Gaming is sure that’s one lesson that the modern Catholic Church in Macau and Vietnam has already taken to heart and one that the MGTO might also wish to contemplate. Michael Grimes Travelling in Hope