Inside Asian Gaming

July 2012 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 15 Hoffman Ma third phase of Ponte 16, the proceeds will also be used to refinance existing credit facilities and repay shareholders’ loans. Inside Asian Gaming caught up with Hoffman Ma to discuss the upcoming third phase of Ponte 16, as well as the property’s other distinguishing characteristics. IAG : What is your vision for phase three of Ponte 16? Hoffman Ma : Phase three will include the shopping arcade and also expansion of the casino. In addition to that, we have tried to work with the cultural side of Macau, the local neighborhood, and we hope that the project can help transform the old town into a more cultural tourist destination of Macau. We are fortunate to have a lot of historical buildings around here, which is already a natural tourism attraction for people coming into Macau. Within our plan we have included a lot of infrastructure support to the local community as well, such as addressing the water flooding problems, electricity shortages, all that. This part of town feels like it has a lot of history. Do you actually get people walking around the area and taking in the heritage sites, then popping into Ponte 16? It would surprise you that the foot traffic we get actually contributes the biggest proportion of our visits. The major reason visitors choose to stay at our hotel [Sofitel Macau at Ponte 16] is because they can walk around the area. And about 25-27% of our customers are return customers. From the initial stage of the project we had to build up our reputation so that everybody knows who we are, because a lot of other international brands have already created their awareness before they started their projects here. We were fortunate that after the purchase of the Michael Jackson stuff, that brought us a lot of international exposure, letting a lot of people know who we are and where we are located. What is the percentage of local players in the casino? About 30-40% of visitors to the casino are locals. We get about 10,000 daily average visitors to the casino. We have a fair share of visitors between locals, Mainland Chinese and people from Hong Kong. Are there any differences in the mix of your customers to that of the other casino resorts on the Macau Peninsula? We have more locals than other casinos and I think in terms of the split between the Mainland Chinese and from Hong Kong, we have a bigger, around a 50/50 split, between the two, whereas for a lot of other places they would have 60/40 between Mainland Chinese and Hong Kong. Your main floor is packed and I guess a lot of the crowd is made up of regular players. What is it in your offer that keeps people coming back? For casino guests the most important thing is to know them. They want to be recognized. So, I think, service is probably the most important thing for a casino guest. It’s very simple. What they need is a table and maybe a nice hotel room where they get the service. You derive a much larger share of your total revenue from mass market play than the market average. What is the secret of your appeal to the mass? The split between our mass and VIP is about 50/50, whereas the market as a whole is closer to 30/70. One thing is that we have regular local players, whereas a lot of other properties don’t. And to attract the locals, service is important, as I mentioned. As for visiting mass-market players, there are two groups of expectations for the people coming into Macau. One is they want to be conveniently located to where they want to go, meaning the Macau peninsula will probably be what they want—you have all the cultural attractions and all the local food nearby. Whereas on the Cotai side I think the expectation will be that everything they need will be in a box. So they can be in there for a weekend with what they want. Going forward, will there be two distinct groups of visitors to Macau? Will there be Cotai visitors and Macau Peninsula visitors? I don’t think there will necessarily be distinct groups of visitors. Cotai is just another option for tourists. Maybe one time they want to be in the box, one time they want to try the local things. So it’s just another choice for them. And it really makes sense because if you stay on the other side it costs almost 60 patacas (US$7.5) per trip coming back to this side for the local environment, food and everything else. You were recently quoted in the press as saying you might be interested in developing a project in Hainan if it were to allow casinos. Do you think the central government in Beijing is likely to allow casinos in Hainan? A question came out at a conference asking what is my view about Hainan. And Ponte 16