Inside Asian Gaming

IAG JAN 2020年1月 亞博匯 22 COVER STORY The moment of truth is finally here. As the clock ticked over from 2019 to 2020, we entered what almost all industry pundits believe will be the most important year in determining the shape of the Japanese IR industry for decades to come. The Japanese market is the hottest issue across the globe for our industry right now, and 2020 will be the year in which the two biggest questions – which operators will partner up with which locations, and which locations will house the first three Japanese integrated resorts – will be largely answered. In this two part series, Inside Asian Gaming CEO Andrew W Scott takes a deep dive into the candidate locations and the candidate operators. In part 1, Andrew discusses 12 candidate locations across the length and breadth of Japan. As at the time of writing, eight of these locations have formally declared that they are actively pursuing an IR bid. The remaining four are either yet to formally declare their intentions but are widely considered possible candidate locations, or formerly expressed interest and have withdrawn, at least for the time being. Andrew ranks them from most likely to win an IR bid to least likely, in his opinion, and offers his commentary on the pros and cons of each. In part 2, to run in our March issue, Andrew will discuss approximately 20 operators that have thrown their hat in the Japan IR ring. Again, he will rank them in order from most likely to win to the least likely, in his opinion. He’ll commentate on the strengths, weaknesses and leadership of each, and analyze their strategies thus far in the Japanese IR process. 揭盅的時刻已經來臨，當日曆從2019年翻進2020年的新一頁時，我們亦進入了大部分業內行家都相信是決定日本未來數十年綜合 度假村(IR)行業的最重要一年。目前而言，日本市場是我們行業在全球的最熱門話題，而2020年將會是兩大重要問題在很大程度上得到 解答的時刻，分別是：哪些營運商會與那些地方合作，以及哪些地方會成為首三間綜合度假村的落腳地。 在這個分為兩個部分的系列裏，《亞博匯》的首席執行官卓弈將會深入剖析每個可能獲選的地點以及營運商。 在第一個部分裏，卓弈將會討論分散在日本各地的12個選址。而在執筆的當下，其中8個已經正式宣佈他們正主動參與這場IR競爭。 餘下的四個中，有些未正式宣佈其意向，但仍被看作可能的選址；有些則是曾表達過興趣，但隨即退出，截至目前仍如此。卓弈會按照自己 的意見，把這些地點依照他們在這場爭奪戰中勝出的可能性進行排列，並且評論各自的優劣所在。 而第二部分，則會於我們的三月號中刊出，當中卓弈會論及大約20間投身日本IR戰場的營運商。他會按照自己的意見，根據這些營運 商勝出的機會作排名。他亦會對於每間的強弱之處和領導層作評論，並且分析他們到現時為止在日本IR競爭過程中的策略。