Las Vegas Sands moves forward with Macau project November 20, 2010
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Las Vegas Sands Corp. is accelerating activity in Macau, launching its initial public offering road show for investors and planning to resume construction on a stalled project there within months, reports said today.
The company, which owns the big Venetian Macao casino-hotel in Macau’s Cotai area, will resume construction on an even larger project there in January, people close to the company told the Wall Street Journal.
The development includes 13.3 million square feet of gambling space, conference halls and Shangri-La, Traders and Sheraton hotels, the Journal’s sources said.
Las Vegas Sands will hire 12,000 to 13,000 construction workers over the next 12 to 18 months to restart work on the project, which currently has its concrete shell and some ceiling-work finished, a person told the Journal.
> Read the full article at Las Vegas Sand
Galaxy Macau on track to open in early 2011 April 14, 2010
Posted by koelnmesse foodie in Industry News.Tags: economy, hotel, Macau
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HONG KONG—Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd. said Monday it has completed the financing plan for its 14.1 billion Hong Kong dollar (US$1.82 billion) flagship casino resort in Macau’s Cotai area, removing a major uncertainty that had concerned investors for months.
When completed, Galaxy’s casino resort in Cotai—an area of reclaimed land between two outlying islands off the Macau peninsula—will have the capacity to host 600 gambling tables and 2,200 luxury hotel rooms, suites and villas in a 550,000 square meter facility.
> Read the full article at WSJ.com
Casino shares up after CE’s speech March 18, 2010
Posted by koelnmesse foodie in Industry News.Tags: economy, hotel, Macau
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Shares in Macau’s United States casino operators registered a rise after Chief Executive Fernando Chui Sai On’s maiden Policy Address was announced on Tuesday.
Since Chui Sai On did not introduce any specific caps on numbers of tables or slot machines, Las Vegas Sands stock jumped 7.33 percent, closing at USD 20.06 – the first time in a while that the company’s stock has surpassed the USD 20 mark. MGM Mirage closed at USD 12.30, up 8.08 percent, while Wynn Resorts stock increased 4.48 percent, finishing at USD 73.63.
Chui Sai On pledged his government would control the size and growth rate of the city’s booming gaming industry. However, the new Government’s leader did not announce any specific cap.
> Read the full article at Macau Daily Times
2010 Policy Address by Macau Chief Executive March 18, 2010
Posted by koelnmesse foodie in Industry News.Tags: economy, Macau
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The Chief Executive said the government will make full use of the Mainland and Macau Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) as a means to push forward economic diversification in Macau and ensure the city to become a “true world tourism and leisure hub and regional trade and investment service platform”.
> Read the full address at Macau Daily Times
Asia/Pacific hotel development for February 2010 March 18, 2010
Posted by koelnmesse foodie in Market Figures.Tags: Asia, China, economy
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LONDON—The Asia/Pacific hotel development pipeline includes 950 hotels comprising 241,020 rooms, according to the February 2010 STR Global Construction Pipeline Report released this week.
China ended the month with the largest number of rooms in the total active pipeline among the countries in the region with 126,798 rooms, followed by India with 43,258.
Among the key markets of the region, Shanghai, China, reported the largest number of rooms in the total active pipeline with 13,954. Three other markets ended the month with more than 5,000 rooms in the total active pipeline: Bangkok, Thailand (7,929 rooms); New Delhi, India (6,962 rooms); and Beijing, China (6,594 rooms).
Among the Chain Scale segments, three of the seven segments accounted for more than 60 percent of rooms in the total active pipeline. The Upper Upscale and Upscale segments made up 23.4 percent of the total active pipeline with 56,350 and 56,468 rooms, respectively. The Unaffiliated segment made up 21.5 percent of the total active pipeline with 51,936 rooms.
> Read more at HotelNewsNow.com
Hotels in Asia Pacific Lead Global Occupancy Recovery March 1, 2010
Posted by koelnmesse foodie in Market Figures.Tags: Asia, hotel
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According to data compiled by STR Global, hotels in the Asia Pacific region experienced increases in all three key performance metrics for January 2010 when reported in U.S. dollar. In year-on-year measurements, the Asia Pacific region’s OR rose 13.9% to 61%, ADR increased 5.6% to US$130.75, and RevPAR jumped 20.3% to US$79.81.
“Hotels in the Asia Pacific region lead the world in terms of occupancy recovery with double-digit growth in three out of the four sub regions and Australia and Oceania improving 3.2%,” said Elizabeth Randall, managing director of STR Global. “The region achieved the highest occupancy of 61%, some 6.2 percentage points more than the Middle East / Africa region, 12.8 percentage points more than Europe and 15.5 percentage points more than the Americas. Of the 16 countries we report on our Asia Pacific Hotel Review, only French Polynesia, Japan, the Maldives and South Korea reported occupancy declines compared with January 2009.”
> Read the full article at AsiaTravelTips.com
Macau Properties Prop Up Las Vegas Sands February 26, 2010
Posted by koelnmesse foodie in Industry News.Tags: hotel, Macau
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Altogether, Sands Corporation owns four properties in Macau, including the Venetian Macau, Plaza Casino, Four Seasons Hotel Macau, and of course, Sands Macau. Revenue generated by the three casinos in Macau totaled $952.8 million in the fourth quarter. By comparison, their two Las Vegas properties generated a mere $263.7 million
Unlike the United States, which is still suffering through a “jobless recovery,” the Chinese economy has rebounded from the effects of the recession. This recovery has allowed Macau casinos to function more profitably, particularly after the Chinese government relaxed their visa restrictions to the island. This development made travel from mainland China to Macau much easier, and brought more tourists to the Sands Resort more often.
> Read the full article at NewsBlaze.com
U.S. casinos’ bet on Macau pays off January 14, 2010
Posted by koelnmesse foodie in Industry News.Tags: China, hotel, Macau, USA
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Macau— sometimes called Macao — has not only overtaken Las Vegas as the world’s top gambling market, but its casinos are rebounding smartly even as gambling “remains stuck in America’s recessionary mud,” as Moody’s Senior Vice President Keith Foley puts it.
In October, Macau gambling revenue hit an all-time high of $1.59 billion after setting a record just two months earlier. The Chinese New Year’s holiday, which lasts for about two weeks starting on Feb. 14, is one of the busiest gambling periods of the year and should provide another boost to business as Asian workers take vacation and head for the casinos en masse.
The emergence of Macau — about 40 miles west of Hong Kong— as a gambling powerhouse is a sign of China’s economic might and the spending potential of the country’s 1.3 billion occupants. In just a few years, American gambling companies have seen their Macau properties become as vital, if not more so, to their bottom line as their more established Las Vegas properties. The global economic downturn has also highlighted the need for U.S. companies to diversify their gambling operations. At the moment, Asia is as promising a market as any for gambling.
> Read the full article at USATODAY.com
Hong Kong auctions overtake London December 15, 2009
Posted by koelnmesse foodie in Industry News.Tags: Hong Kong, wine
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Hong Kong has overtaken London as the second-biggest wine-auction market after New York.
The region’s wine auctions totalled HK$543m (US$70m) – about 25% of wine sales in Hong Kong.Hong Kong’s sales in 2009 surpassed the US$34m taken in London but did not knock New York out of first place, where some US$135m was taken in wine auctions, as estimated by Gil Lempert Schwarz, executive consultant to auction house Acker Merrall & Condit.
Lifting all wine taxes in February 2008 spurred demand for wine, creating an auction market that was ‘zero’ before the tax exclusion, Boris de Vroomen, chairman of the Hong Kong Wine & Spirits Industry Coalition told decanter.com.
The manga that poured French wine into Asia September 18, 2009
Posted by koelnmesse foodie in Industry News.Tags: Asia, wine
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Yuko and Shin Kibayashi, a fashionable sister-brother duo publishing under the pseudonym Tadashi Agi, created “Kami no Shizuki” (The Drops of God), a phenomenally successful manga series that has brought wine to subway commuters across Asia, and sparked a wine boom.
In the four years since it first appeared, the 21-volume saga, where wines can be compared for excellence to a star rock concert, has sold six million copies in Japan and three million in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea, according to French publisher Editions Glenat.
“The Japanese love the ritual side of wine. In Korea, they have even discovered that wine can be a diplomatic tool,” said Shin Kibayashi. “Wine is universal, it can very well bridge differences between races and countries.”
