Inside Asian Gaming

IAG JUL 2023年7月 亞博匯 28 COVER STORY changing, because if you look at the new travelers, the new tourists, what they are looking for is somewhat different from the previous generation. They look for more iconic features, they look for photo opportunities, they look for good food, good places to hang out. And some of our customers are younger in age than our previous customers. So, when we made a decision to transform this place, we took everything into account and asked, “What will be the future – not just now but for tourists over the next decade?” And this was where The Londoner journey began. AWS: When the Macau gaming industry was liberalized more than 20 years ago now, there were six concessionaires all basically starting on an even footing. Yet here we are today with two operators in the marketplace (Sands China and Galaxy Entertainment Group) that are clearly much bigger and with much larger market shares than the other four. In your view, how and why did this happen? Dr Wong: I think it has to do with the vision of our founder, Mr [Sheldon] Adelson. When he first came to Macau, everyone was trying to identify sites for development in the old part of Macau, which is where you see MGM, Wynn – and of course Sands Macao was the first to be there. But he looked for further development opportunities and the government said, “There is this site in Cotai you can develop”.