Inside Asian Gaming

inside asian gaming February 2015 44 A Banner Year for Vegas, With More To Come The 12 months ended 31st December marked another strong chapter in the Las Vegas Strip recovery story, and indications are the good news will continue into 2015. But it won’t be gaming that drives it. Non-gaming spending by visitors continues to outpace casino revenue, and all indications are the trend will continue. According to the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s recently published “Fiscal 2014 Gaming Abstract,” Strip casinos grew their total revenue by 5% last year to US$16.3 billion. Gaming revenue was up 4.2% to $5.99—but it comprised only 36.7% of the overall number. And it’s still down 7.7% from its peak of $6.5 billion in fiscal 2007. But then, gaming’s contribution to the overall financial health of the Strip has been less than half since 1998. The average split of 60-40 between non-gaming and gaming revenue has been the trend since the mid-2000s. Conversely, fiscal 2014 saw the non-gaming take reach 12-month revenue records. Hotel rooms on the Strip brought in $4.25 billion; restaurants accounted for $2.51 billion; alcohol sales topped $1.2 billion; and other areas—nightclubs, retail and entertainment—had revenue of $2.35 billion. Visitation, meanwhile, is expected to top a record 41.1 million when calendar 2014 is in the books, and the city’s tourism authorities predict it will grow by another 500,000 in 2015. Another Strip strong suit, conventions, counting those already booked for 2015, are projected to attract 15,000 more attendees than a year ago. Baha Mar: Chinese Money and the New Bahamas Baha Mar, the Chinese-financed US$3.5 billion Caribbean super- resort, will begin accepting guests on 27th March. In announcing the date, the Bahamas’ newest and most anticipated destination in years has signaled the end of repeated delays—it was supposed to open in mid-December—and will cap the soft opening with a grand unveiling in May. “They will miss the high season, but they will spend the time making sure everything will be in place for the next high season,” Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe told the Miami Herald . “We feel we will do well in terms of arrivals for Baha Mar and expect high occupancy rates and high room rates.” Robert Sands, a senior vice president for Baha Mar Ltd, declined to comment on the delays other than to say the project is “quite complex” and Baha Mar wants to be sure it can “offer the complete luxury product” when it opens, especially as the project will be wooing guests from around the world—from North Americans, who are expected to account for the biggest market share, to Latin Americans and Chinese high rollers. In regard to the latter, Baha Mar is emblematic of a growing relationship between the small island nation with a population of about 380,000 and the most populous country in the world. China State Construction Engineering Corp., the project’s main contractor, holds a $150 million equity stake. The Export-Import Bank of China financed $2.4 billion of the cost. More than 4,000 Chinese workers have been employed at the site. The brainchild of Bahamas entrepreneur Sarkis Izmirlian, the 1,000-acre resort is located at Nassau’s popular Cable Beach. It will comprise four hotels initially—a 700-room Grand Hyatt, a 300-room SLX LUX, a 200-room Rosewood, the flagship Baha Mar Casino & Hotel, with 1,000 rooms—and 284 private residences. A fifth hotel, the nearby Meliá Nassau Beach, will be added as the rebranded Meliá at Baha Mar following completion of $19 million of renovations. INTERNATIONAL BRIEFS Plans for the 100,000-square-foot casino, to be run by William Weidner’s Global Gaming Asset Management, call for 1,500 machine games and 150 live tables. Updated regulations also will allow Internet and mobile gambling and in-play sports and proxy betting to be part of the mix. “Our state-of-the-art casino will match what you would find in Las Vegas, Macau or Singapore,” Mr Sands said. Non-gaming attractions will include 50 restaurants, bars and lounges, retail shopping, 20 acres of beaches and pools, a beachfront nature sanctuary, art galleries, a performing arts center, a 30,000-square-foot ESPA spa, a championship golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus and 200,000 square feet of convention and meeting space. VIPs, not surprisingly, figure prominently in the marketing strategy, and tens of millions are being spent to get the word out in key US cities and beyond. An agreement signed by the PRC and the Bahamas last year allows visa-free travel from China for up to Baha Mar