Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | May 2010 20 Cover Story How do you sell the idea of an IR to the Japanese authorities? With gaming as a base to develop an IR in either Tokyo or Osaka, it could provide a whole lot of incentive for people to bring international meetings to Japan. I think the Japanese authorities are intelligent enough—looking at this [Marina Bay Sands] to see they need a boost of tourism. Japan’s economy is relatively flat, so they are looking for opportunities to develop. The Tokyo facilities for conventions and meetings are not very adequate for the demand that could be created, and the same in Osaka. They have facilities, but they’re really not very good in terms of the size and the infrastructure of hotel rooms. They can’t develop it. Look at where Japan currently ranks in the MICE business compared to Singapore. You’ll see my point. Japan is way down the list. It’s somewhere on a par with Stockholm as a convention destination for goodness sake. That’s ridiculous relative to Japan’s importance as a country and as an economy. The pressure to legalise casino gaming in Japan seems to be coming from local government—the prefectures— rather than the national government. There have been various politicians in the Diet [Japanese Parliament] who have taken up the gaming cause in terms of having an integrated resort, and one of the governors from one of the prefectures and his staff has also looked at it. SteveWynn said recently he wouldn’t do anything that would hurt his business in Macau. Would doing something in Japan have an impact on LVS’s Macau operation? I was thinking of the fact that the Four Seasons brand that you have on Cotai seems clearly targeted at Japanese customers. Japanese business in Macau is a very small percentage of Macau’s business. I hope SteveWynn doesn’t want to go to Japan because we want to go to Japan. “Marina Bay Sands will be the most important product in our system, although it doesn’t have the amount of [hotel] rooms that [our] Las Vegas [offer] has. From a financial investment as well as a return on investment standpoint, Singapore should be the largest [operation] in the company.” Sands Skypark Museum Event Plaza Crystal Pavillion Hotel Theatres Casino The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands Sands Expo and Convention Center