Inside Asian Gaming

November 2013 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 15 COVER STORY and convention facilities with golf courses, a marina and an outdoor arena with a total price tag of US$1 billion. Earlier this year, casino giant Galaxy Entertainment Group weighed in with an expression of interest, possibly as an investor in sports arenas, golf courses and a marina. “Hengqin is going to be very important for us,” Deputy Chairman Francis Lui told Reuters . “The customer is wanting a bigger and bigger experience, and in Macau we just don’t have the land, and it would be too expensive.” Certainly there are enough Chinese tourists to support development on this scale. What remains finally is the ability for them to get to it. Most visitors to Cotai from the mainland still come through the Gongbei border crossing on the Macau peninsula because it’s easier to get to and is open till midnight. The Lotus Bridge remains woefully underused, handling only about 10-20% of the traffic, and that will have to change. Operating hours at the checkpoint there have been extended to 10 p.m., and that’s helped. It’s reported that 24-hour clearance is on the way. There are plans also to move the checkpoint to Hengqin Bridge opposite Zhuhai at the north end of the island. This would open up a single entry with only one border checkpoint, Macau’s, and will make day trips to Cotai more convenient and promote regular movement between different locations on Hengqin. A highway to Hengqin from the Zhuhai North rail station is under construction and its scheduled opening in 2015 will go a long way to making the checkpoint more attractive as a point of entry. The eastern section of a four-lane ring road linking Chimelong and UMAC with the checkpoint is complete, and a western section is nearing completion. These will allow local authorities to proceed with plans to run something like 10 bus routes into Chimelong, including special routes connecting to and from Zhuhai’s Jinwan Airport and various stops along the popular Guangzhou-Zhuhai Intercity Rail. An Intercity Rail extension from Gongbei to Hengqin also is planned and could be operational in a couple of years. This will be key as it will tie Hengqin into China’s national High Speed Rail network. Seven stations have been mapped for the 17-kilometer run, five of themunderground. Its completion will allow travelers to get from Gongbei to the fun at Chimelong in about 10 minutes. Plans call for connecting the Hengqin station to Macau’s Light Rail Transit line in Cotai. An Intercity connection with Jinwan also is contemplated, the effect of which will be to connect Cotai directly to the airport. It’s expected also that at some point free access to Hengqin will be granted to vehicles bearing Macau license plates, which would make it a lot easier for the casinos to run shuttle buses to the island. “The good news, clearly, is that many if not all the Macau casino operators are contemplating non-gaming developments on Hengqin,” says Mr Govertsen, “and that makes sense because they, too, realize the problem, the high-class problem, of having too many guests than can be dealt with with the existing and expected stock of hotel rooms. You can make the argument that it is a gaming investment. And I’m not saying they’re going to have gaming there, they won’t, but it’s to drive their existing investments in gaming and non-gaming in Macau.” Earlier this year, Galaxy Entertainment Group weighed in with an expression of interest, possibly as an investor in sports arenas, golf courses and a marina. “Hengqin is going to be very important for us,” Deputy Chairman Francis Lui told Reuters . “The customer is wanting a bigger and bigger experience, and in Macau we just don’t have the land, and it would be too expensive.”