Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | February 2012 18 2010 Year-on-Year Increase in Spending by Top 10 Visitors Groups to US in China grew 31% in 2010 to 1.1 million, according to a recent Bloomberg report. Only the United States and Japan are home to more. Chinese tourists spend more per capita in the United States than visitors from any other country, twice as much as those from the largest European feeder markets, and three times as much as the average international visitor, according to US Department of Commerce data. In aggregate, their spending has more than quadrupled over the last decade. They’re also the fastest- growing segment of inbound travel. Through October of 2011, more than 930,000 Chinese visited the United States, up 36% year-on- year. The Commerce Department expects this to grow to well over 2 million by 2016. Their propensity to gamble makes them especially attractive for Las Vegas. Ten percent of international visitors to the United States listed “casinos/gambling” as an expenditure in a 2010 Commerce Department survey. Among respondents from China, it was 19%. The five years from 2006 to 2010 saw a 70% increase in visitors to Las Vegas from China and Hong Kong, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. They totalled 148,000 in 2010, an increase of 38% year over year. More than 88,000 arrived by air from China on connecting US or overseas carriers. Through October of last year, that number was up 10% to more than 97,000. This is with no airline running direct flights from China. But the city is pushing for it, and it could happen come the opening of a new, larger terminal at McCarran International Airport, scheduled for June. In the meantime, the city is pulling out the stops. Chinese New Year finds hotel lobbies adorned with citrus trees and red and gold lanterns, the casinos host lavish dinners and VIP events for their biggest players, the restaurants get creative with special menus and vie with one another to book the most popular Chinese entertainers and stage the splashiest Lion Dance and Dragon Dance ceremonies. The atriums at Wynn Las Vegas were decorated this year with silk dragons, dragon sculptures 8 feet high and more than 8,000 red and yellow chrysanthemums. Amid the 22,000 flowers at the Conservatory and Botanical Gardens at Bellagio were two 25-foot dragons. The Palazzo displayed a fire-breathing dragon 128 feet long. Even Downtown Las Vegas got into the act with food, arts and crafts and cultural presentations under the Fremont Street Experience’s four-block- long canopy of lights. “Overall, it’s got to do with marketing and competition,” says Steve Rosen, an industry veteran who spent five years in Macau with Las Vegas Sands Corp and later with the original Studio City project. “You’ve got a lot of American companies now that are more comfortable and more familiar with Asian cultures gained from their properties in Macau and Singapore. So they’re marketing differently, and that’s more appealing to the Asian player, and it’s reflected in baccarat.” The breakthrough came with the “Westernisation” of the gaming product in Macau, he says, which provided the Chinese with an entirely new experience and gave them a taste for Las Vegas. “They’re more comfortable over here; it’s what they’re Feature Source: U.S.Department of Commerce, Office of Travel and Tourism Industries from the Bureau of Economic Analysis Right on the edge—The McCarran International Airport is just 1 mile from the Las Vegas Strip