Inside Asian Gaming

insid e asian gaming FE BRUARY 2016 4 EDITORIAL Steven Ribet We crave your feedback. Please email your comments to [email protected] . Inside Asian Gaming is part of www.wgg9.com Inside Asian Gaming is published by Must Read Publications Ltd +853 2883 6497 For subscription enquiries, please email [email protected] For advertising enquiries, please email [email protected] or call +853 6688 7214 www.asgam.com ISSN 2070-7681 Chief Executive Officer Andrew W Scott Managing Editor Steven Ribet Editor at Large Muhammad Cohen Other Regular Contributors Paul Doocey, Kareem Jalal, Rui Pinto Proença, I Nelson Rose, Andrew W Scott Graphic Designer Rui Gomes Photography Ike, Gary Wong, James Leong, Wong Kei Cheong Founder and Adviser Kareem Jalal ◊ Chief Marketing Officer Derrick Tran Chief Operating Officer Michael Mariakis Director João Costeira Varela Administrator Cynthia Cheang Administrative Assistant Suie Ng Upping Macau’s Tourism Game O n 21 January Macau’s Secretary for Administration and Justice Sonia Chan made the curious comment that hundreds of the city’s laws and regulations needed to be abolished. The rules, she explained, dated back to the Portuguese colonial era and had lost relevance under the rapid development caused by the explosion of the casino industry. As long as times were good, she said, social problems were not hard to resolve. But now with gaming revenues in a protracted slump, Chan said social conflicts had appeared to highlight the laws’ inadequacies. Although Chan was talking about the law, according to some her comments could equally have referred to the management of Macau’s tourism industry. Fifteen years ago the territory was not a shadow of what we see today, with a visitor offering to match. Today it has soared into the ranks of the world’s top destinations. In 2014, for example, visitors to Macau spent a staggering US$54 billion. While admittedly the lion’s share of that amount is gaming revenue, it was still more than three times as much as they spent in London. Yet in terms of how it markets and serves visitors from its most important market (see cover story) and farther afield, there is an acknowledgement that Macau is still behind where is should be, and the lag is now being painfully exposed. Take, for starters, branding. An Asian urbanite will immediately be able to tell you what images spring to mind when he hears “Paris” or “Las Vegas.” Say “Macau”, however, and after getting past “casinos”, he or she will probably come up blank. As one commentator puts it, “Macau was the original laboratory for West meeting East. It has plenty of world class stuff but has failed to turn them into world-class attractions. Cooperation is lacking between the Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) and the big integrated resorts, to co-ordinate their offerings for visits that take in sightseeing and a show, as well as a visit to a casino.” Forward planning is another area. While the tourism departments of top destinations routinely draw up lists of scenarios to prepare for, the slump in gaming seem to have caught the Macau Government Tourism Office completely off guard. Then there is research. Cities like New York and Hong Kong spend huge amounts of time and money talking to target customers in different parts of the world; to find out how they are perceived and why foreigners want to come. Recently a Macau university academic told us in Macau such efforts are largely confined to MGTO staff standing at the border to approach new arrivals with a questionnaire. The challenge facing any tourist destination can be put in four simple sentences: Attract more visitors. Get them to stay longer. Get them to spend more during their trip. Get them to come back. Yet on all four accounts Macau is now in decline. According to the city’s statistics service, visitor arrivals last year actually fell by 2.6%. The average length of stay is a brief 1.4 days and has been steady around this number for the best part of a decade, compared with 4.2 in London (for both domestic and overseas visitors) and 3.6 for Las Vegas. Non-gaming spending shows no sign of making up for collapsing gaming revenues. Worst of all, only 8% of those who have come say they intend to return, according to recent research by CLSA. That compares with 37% for Japan and 25% for Hong Kong. Last September the MGTO made the wise move of hiring a top consultancy AECOM Asia to spend 18 months researching and drafting a “Local Tourism Master Plan.” The report will recommend a strategy to open Macau to the world and diversify its tourism products over the short, medium and long term. Implementation will be crucial. Pundits are fond of saying Macau should learn from Las Vegas. Yet if the city cannot up its game, another reference might be Atlantic City. America’s east coast hub for gambling turned out to have little else to offer after neighboring states started opening casinos of their own. Macau’s emerging competitors in Korea (see this edition’s “In Focus” article), the Philippines and Australia are much further away, so the comparison may be overblown. Yet given that tourism generates some 90% of Macau’s GDP, the consequences of a failure to improve its tourism offering could be equally severe.