Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | November 2013 20 “It is no longer enough to simply understand the retail landscape. It requires vision and it requires the resources to realize that vision, something which happens only under rare circumstances.” David Sylvester, Senior Vice President Retail Development, Sands China Ltd IN FOCUS driven young century of consumption by the likes of behavioral research giants like London-based TNS. Some years back, an online newsletter called Retail Insights that LVS tried to get going in the run-up to the opening of Marina Bay Sands reprinted an article from TNS that spoke of the “need to manage multiple brand concepts, experiences and niche products as seamless elements of an investment portfolio where returns are maximized and risk is minimized”. The articlewent on, “Withbuyingdecisions increasinglymadeat the point of purchase, understanding the impact of the retail environment is more important than ever before.” And it concluded, “Innovators in 2015 will be those that offer new combinations of products, experiences and services that encourage shoppers to express themselves.” This could almost double for the strategy behind the nearly 1.9 million square feet of mall development LVS has brought to Macau and Singapore, an investment far surpassing the competition and which for sheer volume alone explains why Sands China derives a substantially larger proportion of its revenues away from the casino floor. Retail Insights was discontinued after six issues. But it was around that time, late 2009, that LVS came up with the idea for a catalogue showcasing the retailers at The Grand Canal Shoppes at Venetian Macao. “Cool Pursuits,” it was called, and 60,000 copies of it were distributed in-room, on the company’s Cotai Jet ferries and in select locations in Macau, Hong Kong and Guangzhou. The marketing mix since then has includedVIP-targeted events such as private showings of designer collections. The company still operates the region’s only purpose-built Web site— sandsretailasia.com — promoting its investment in the sector. “It is indicative of the changing landscape in Asia and the potential for us to create major shopping and leisure destinations,” as Sheldon Adelson has put it. Not that he discovered the gold mine that retail represented for resort-scale gaming. If anyone did it was Henry Gluck, the financier who ran Caesars World through most of the 1980s and early ’90s and who pioneered the model Flagship Luxury