Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | April 2013 4 COVER STORY I t was Friday, 15th March, the US$750 million first phase of Manila’s Solaire Resort & Casino was going to open in 24 hours, and dozens of men and women were working through the steamy afternoon to put the finishing touches on the outdoor backdrop and the lighting and sound effects where President of the Republic Benigno Aquino III would be officiating the next day. Not far away, just out of earshot of the hammers and cranes, across an empty field and down the wide, empty expanse of Aseana Avenue, a street so new the virgin asphalt bears no lane markings, Lawrence Ho and James Packer, co-chairmen of Melco Crown Entertainment, had brought together the Chinese and Australian ambassadors under the leaden sky for an “officiating ceremony” in honor of Belle Grande Manila Bay, Solaire’s $1.3 billion rival whose opening is more than a year away. Not a card had been dealt at that point at Bagong Nayong Pilipino Entertainment City, not a wheel spun or a drink poured, not a limo in sight, and already the game was on. It’s a game the government eagerly awaits as it looks to Entertainment City—120 hectares of reclaimed flatlands along Manila Bay at the southwestern tip of the teeming capital city—to be the place where the Philippines is transformed into a destination of choice for Asia’s increasingly affluent and leisure-hungry masses, its own included. Tourism is a big deal in this island nation of 96 million, accounting for 10% of employment in a country where services generate 55% of annual GDP and the jobless rate hovers stubbornly at around 7%, the highest in Southeast Asia and more than double the average for the region. There were 4.2million tourist arrivals in 2012. The government’s goal is 10 million by 2016. This would boost the sector’s share of total employment to more than 18%. The difference will be about 3.6 million jobs, according to government projections. Solaire has created some 4,500 of those jobs at start-up, more than 400 of them returnees from the great Filipino diaspora routed straight into management for their skills and experience in gaming and hospitality in Macau, Singapore, Southeast Asia and the Arabian Peninsula. There is, then, something distinctly celebratory about this vision that sees vast Game On Solaire Resort & Casino opened at Manila’s Entertainment City last month with a physical plant unlike anything the Philippines has seen and maybe just what it’s been waiting for A sampling of Solaire’s spacious room product.