Inside Asian Gaming

March 2015 inside asian gaming 19 aggressiveness on VIPs, then said, “The Signature Club is beautiful. Maybe that’s what they’re going after, the premium mass segment. That’s what they’ve done in Macau.” If capacity is constrained in Macau, CoD Manila has room, and gaming areas don’t ban smoking. DOMESTIC AGENDA “From they beginning, they’ve not been bashful about saying the domestic market is a large one,” Mr Hernando said. He noted that, unlike Solaire, CoD Manila was advertising on local television during prime time, using spots featuring film giants Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert DiNiro and director Martin Scorsese. At CoD Manila’s grand opening, top Melco Crown executives repeatedly praised the Philippine market of 100 million people, including some 20 million in Metro Manila. In a January report, Morgan Stanley Research Asia/Pacific forecast 6.3% GDP expansion Feature this year to drive mass-gaming revenue growth. The report notes Philippine consumers spend just 2% of their income on leisure, less than half the comparable level of Indonesians, Thais and Malaysians, and speculates rising disposable incomes in the Philippines could trigger greater gaming spend amid increased leisure expenditure. Mr Cheung was most explicit about the domestic opportunity: “The Philippine gaming market and Philippine economy keep growing,” he said. “With this nice property, we’d like to take a piece of that market.” With its location at the edge of Entertainment City bounded by two major boulevards connecting to the heart of Manila—the sites of the other three resorts are along the Manila Bay waterfront— CoD Manila may have a slight edge when it comes to accessibility for locals. During the sneak preview, CoD Manila’s reported average daily visitation of 15,000 roughly equaled Solaire’s, though both trail the 20,000 daily footfall at Resorts World Manila, which is adjacent to the airport and connected to Manila’s highway system, A toll road linking Entertainment City directly to the airport, Makati business district and highway system is scheduled for completion late this year. (The exit ramp will feed into the bayfront side of Entertainment City, possibly negating CoD Manila’s locational advantage.) Along with new resorts, that’s likely to push Manila’s center of gaming gravity toward Entertainment City. “Is the market big enough to support two IRs? Yes,” Global Market Advisors Partner Andrew Klebanow believes. He’s not sure, though, that the airport and related infrastructure “can bring in enough customers” to support Entertainment City with four resorts, plus Resorts World Manila, much less Caesars Entertainment’s proposed IR adjacent to the airport. Still, what he is certain of is that international players are vital to Manila’s long-term success. Editor at large Muhammad Cohen also blogs for Forbes on gaming throughout Asia and wrote “Hong Kong On Air,” a novel set during the 1997 handover about TV news, love, betrayal, high finance and cheap lingerie. With its location at the edge of Entertainment City bounded by two major boulevards connecting to the heart of Manila—the sites of the other three resorts are along the Manila Bay waterfront—CoD Manila may have a slight edge when it comes to accessibility for locals.