Inside Asian Gaming

March 2012 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 31 “The 200-room Suning Bellagio Shanghai Bund will put 200 hotel rooms, world-class restaurants and an assortment of high-end amenities in the heart of the city’s historic waterfront district.” Feature F resh off a fourth quarter that saw a 52% increase in net revenue—thanks largely to resurgent room rates on the Las Vegas Strip and stellar performance at its Macau subsidiary—MGM Resorts International is raising its bet on Asia with plans for another luxury non-gaming hotel, its fifth, this one a Bellagio-branded project in Shanghai. Scheduled to open in 2015, right about the time MGM hopes to have carved a significant slice of Cotai for itself, the 200- room Suning Bellagio Shanghai Bund will put 200 hotel rooms, world-class restaurants and an assortment of high-end amenities in the heart of the city’s historic waterfront district, providing the casino giant with a five-star presence in China’s largest city and another gilt-edged calling card for introducing high-net-worth mainlanders to its VIP rooms at MGMMacau and high-stakes Appetite for Expansion The coming proliferation of non-gaming hotels developed by MGM Resorts International in China is a testament to the company’s success in cultivating ‘guanxi’