Inside Asian Gaming

inside asian gaming April 2015 9 WORKING THE ROOMS One problem has been the sound business practice of maximizing profits from one of Macau’s scarce resources, hotel rooms. “If you’re yield-managing rooms, the highest and best use is a casino customer in the room [rather] than giving it to a convention attendee,” Global Market Advisors Partner Andrew Klebanow says. He points out that Las Vegas has 150,000 hotel rooms, while Macau has 28,000, about 18,000 of them five-star. “All those rooms are now for casino-centric customers,” Mr Klebanow says. “Macau doesn’t have enough rooms to alter its strategy. The next stage will help, [but] they will need a lot more hotel rooms and airlift to reposition Macau.” New Cotai resorts coming online over the next two years will add some 12,000 rooms, and experts expect Macau operators will widen their nets to fill them, particularly if Chinese high rollers remain reluctant to visit Macau and spend like old times. But more rooms alone won’t change arrival patterns. Convincing travelers from beyond Greater China to choose Macau, whether they’re gamblers or sightseers, remains difficult for a variety of reasons. “Macau is not the easiest place to get to,” Mr Klebanow says. International flights into Macau are limited and most on regional budget airlines that premium players may shun. Flying into Hong Kong means reaching Macau via ferry—except for those who can afford the helicopter option—adding at least an hour, and more bother, to the journey. The Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai bridge will make the trip simpler, but that’s now unlikely to be completed before 2020, four years behind the original target. “Macau is now being viewed as a daytrip destination [from Hong Kong],” Mr Wong says. “Given the cost associated with traveling to a daytrip destination, it may not be worth the money.” He suggests working more closely with Hong Kong and cities in the Pearl River Delta region to create a more attractive tourism zone. “Of course, this is very challenging because different cities have their own priorities and agendas,” he concedes. “Perhaps we need to prepare the city better for non-Chinese visitors,” Mr Wong adds. “Our foreign language ability is not as good as that of Hong Kong and Singapore.” He ranks Macau’s high cost relative to other regional destinations, poor public transport, scattered tourist sties and inadequate signage as other constraints. Spectrum Asia’s Mr Bromberg says international visitors in Hong Kong can look at a side trip to Macau in two ways. On the negative side, the ferry ride isn’t a great experience, often concluding with long waits at immigration, particularly in Macau. On the positive side, Macau offers a unique history and culture with singular attractions from museums to graveyards. “If you hunt around, it can be a very pleasant tourism and dining experience.” SHARING THE WEALTH “We want to market Macau not only as a city with a lot of new tourism infrastructure and entertainment but, at the same time, as a city which maintains its unique blend of East and West cultures and heritage,” MGTO says. “For the more mature markets, we’d like [repeat] visitors to explore the lesser-known places of Macau. MGTO is also diversifying tourism products to attract different types of visitors and let them participate in the plentiful events and festivities of Macau.” This “community tourism” initiative, as MGTO terms it, driving more visitor traffic toward lesser traveled areas of Macau, aims to