Inside Asian Gaming

inside asian gaming June 2014 6 Matt Hurst was on the front lines in Macau for the openings of Sands, Wynn and City of Dreams. He’s working for Kazuo Okada in the Philippines now, where he believes he’s got the category-killer. IAG : Looking ahead to the big opening in 2015, what are the target markets for Manila Bay Resorts at this point in the planning? Mr Hurst: In terms of the mass of our numbers we would say 90% of our customers we expect to be locals, 25% of our revenue. The other 10% of the customers will be international customers, and they would represent 75% of our revenue. Targets. International meaning Chinese? Chinese, Korean, Japan, Taiwanese, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia. Have I forgotten anywhere? Vietnam. We’re certainly looking pan-Asia. But clearly there are a lot Chinese customers from Malaysia, from Singapore, from Indonesia. There are Chinese domestic customers. So we need to be on top of what a Chinese customer wants. But mainland China, we’re certainly zeroed in on that. And there’s a lot of potential upside. In the year 2000 there were less than 8,000 mainland Chinese visiting the Philippines. In 2012 it was around 250,000. Last year it was 425,000. This year we’re up 40% already on last year, and that was 70% growth last year. Now that won’t carry on forever. But the upside for when we open at the end of next year is we’re probably looking M att Hurst , one of the top guns in machine gaming in Macau for the better part of a decade, quit the booming Chinese gambling enclave the end of last year for sultry Manila and his “dream job,” as he calls it, running the casino that will be the largest in the Philippines when it opens next year as the anchor of Kazuo Okada’s US$2 billion Manila Bay Resorts. Manila Bay Resorts will encompass a full 44 of Entertainment City’s 120 hectares when it’s built out—the third of the four IRs licensed for the government-sponsored leisure district and the biggest of them ultimately—“an integrated resort that’s going to stand shoulder to shoulder with anything in Asia or the world,” says Mr Hurst. The first of its three phases will feature 1,000 hotel rooms, a nightclub, a domed pool and Vegas-style day club, 22 restaurants, a spa, significant meetings and exhibition space and 7,500 square meters of high end retail, all of it set against a dramatic outdoor display of dancing fountains. Plans for the 30,000-square-meter casino call for 3,000 machine games and 500 table games. Mr Hurst will be in charge of them all. As executive vice president—Casino Operations and Marketing for MBR’s operating company, Tiger Resort, Leisure and Entertainment, his responsibilities range from strategic planning and development to mass and VIP marketing, advertising, branding, public relations and customer service. A “dream job,” indeed, and he’s amassed a wealth of experience in preparation for it, dating back to Sky City Auckland in the Harrah’s days. He came to Macau as a senior shift manager at Sands Macao four months before the casino’s historic May 2004 opening. He was at Wynn Macau for its 2006 opening, serving as director of Slot Operations before helping to open his third Macau resort, Melco Crown’s City of Dreams, where he was vice president— Gaming Machines from May 2008 through November of last year and was instrumental in pioneering concepts such as floor-wide jackpots and dedicated high-limit areas that are now staples of the market. Inside Asian Gaming caught up with him recently for a wide-ranging discussion of the enormous opportunities awaiting a destination on the scale of Manila Bay Resorts in a country that has presented its premier operators to date with some sizable challenges as well. May 2014 Cover Story I’ll Take Manila