Inside Asian Gaming

January 2013 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 37 FEATURES from capital improvements and have great management teams,” he said.” Both have increased their market share in markets that held up well during the recession, as did Detroit.” MGM’s focus elsewhere in North America is primarily on new markets: Maryland, where the company is now favored to win the bidding process for the new casino in Prince George’s County, with an US$800 million project on National Harbor that would be jointly developed with Peterson Companies opening in 2016; Springfield, Mass., where Mr Murren believes MGM “will be competitive and hopefully will prevail”; and Toronto, “where we’ll certainly be one of many that will be interested because the opportunity is so great in such an exciting, cosmopolitan city. They will attract the best of the best to try to build there.” Outside the US, last year was awatershed year for MGM in Macau, when the company jointly listed MGM China on the Hong Kong exchange. In connection with that listing, it acquired an additional percentage of that company, which means that MGM Resorts is the majority owner of MGM China, which had a record year in 2011, and is on its way to another record year in 2012 “We have invested a considerable amount of money into MGM Macau in the past 12 months, expanding and improving the gaming areas, and we have more opportunities to grow in that resort itself,” said Mr Murren. Last month, MGM China was allowed to purchase the land concession to build the second MGM property in Macau, MGM Cotai, which will be a large, integrated $2.5 billion resort. The design is largely complete; construction drawings will be out soon and the company is hopeful the project will open in 2016. “We spend considerable amounts of time overseas becausewe see other opportunities toutilize our development andmanagement expertise,”said Mr Murren.“In Vietnam, we’re acting as developer for an owner, and longer term, in markets such as South Korea and Japan and perhaps Taiwan. Globally, gaming is becoming more mainstream as it has in the United States, and the universe of quality gaming developers and operators is quite small, so it’s worth it for us as a company to invest in the opportunity to bring MGM to new markets.” “M” as in Marketing MGM’s Players Club became M Life in 2011, and the program now has over 30 million enrolled members, or over half of MGM’s database. Mr Murren credits Bill Hornbuckle, MGM’s chief marketing officer, for bringing success to an area where the company had lagged. “Our loyalty program, up until three years ago, was inferior to our competitors’; we had to candidly assess where we stood,” said Mr Murren. “That’s where Bill Hornbuckle and his team came in. We also invested quite a bit of money in technology.” Mr Murren felt the old Players Club program was inflexible, since it was not based on a 360-degree view of customer spend. It also failed as an aspirational tiered offering due to its lack of transparency with members, who did not know precisely what Exterior of Crystals shopping mall at CityCenter Las Vegas MGM Resorts International recently won a land concession in Macau where it plans to build its second property, MGM Cotai, to go along with its existing MGM Grand Macau, (pictured here).