The southern Chinese casino gambling powerhouse of Macau is getting a French twist.
U.S. billionaire Sheldon Adelson is set to throw open the doors Tuesday to the French-themed Parisian Macao, the mogul's fifth property in the former Portuguese colony.
The $2.9 billion casino resort is packed with replicas of famous Paris landmarks, from a scaled-down Arc de Triomphe to a half-size replica of the Eiffel Tower. The faux monument offers visitors panoramic views of the Cotai Strip, Macau's version of the Las Vegas Strip built on reclaimed land between two islands.
The Parisian, operated by the Chinese unit of Adelson's Las Vegas Sands Corp., is the second American-owned resort to launch in Macau in less than a month, following the mid-August opening of Steve Wynn's $4.2 billion Wynn Palace.
The opening comes just as the extended downturn in Macau's gambling revenues shows signs of bottoming out. Casino revenues rose 1.1 percent in August, the first monthly expansion after 26 straight months of declining growth.
"We are optimistic that we have hit the bottom" in the monthly decline gross gambling reveneus, Sands CEO Adelson said at a press conference ahead of the official opening, planned for the auspicious, by Chinese standards, local time of 8:18 p.m. — eights being a symbol of getting rich.
"Now, is it sustainable for a long time to come? I can't answer that question but based upon the pre-bookings we have, based upon the convention bookings we have, I think we have essentially hit the bottom."
The tiny enclave near Hong Kong is the only place in China where casinos are legal.
After years of supercharged growth that transformed Macau into the world's top casino gambling market, earnings have slowed as China's economy decelerates and President Xi Jinping cracks down on corruption, crimping lavish spending by mainland Chinese high-rollers. Still, with annual gambling revenues last year of $29 billion, its market is still about four times bigger than the Las Vegas Strip's.
The Parisian makes its debut with about 410 gambling tables, including 310 brought over from other Sands resorts and 100 more "new to market" tables that recently approved by Macau's gambling regulator, which also granted the resort permission to add 50 more new tables over the next two years.
Attractions will include street performances by mimes and cancan dancers and a shopping mall modeled on the Champs-Elysees and other famed Paris streets
Authorities want the city's six casino operators to diversify away from reliance on high-spending visitors by adding more family-friendly attractions to their new resorts, to help raise Macau's profile as an Asian tourist destination. The emphasis on mass market attractions also reflects Beijing's fears over capital flight via Macau, where middlemen known as junket operators help skirt China's capital controls by lending money to wealthy visitors from the mainland.
Macau is unlikely to see a return to the spectacular expansion of previous years because the junket market, which at one point accounted for as much as two thirds of total gambling revenue, has shrunk dramatically. Competition from other emerging Asian gambling locations such as Saipan and Cambodia is also weighing on the market as rivals try to poach some junket business from Macau, he added.
"I can't tell you where that's going to go but the mass market will always be here," Adelson said.
With the completion of the Parisian, Sands has finished developing all its land in Macau, bringing its total investment in the city to between $13-$14 billion. The company will now focus on looking opportunities elsewhere in the region to build new casino resorts, Adelson said.
"There doesn't seem to be too much more growth here," he said. "We are aggressively and continuously, let me call it lobbying for other locations throughout the Asia Pacific countries," including Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and Thailand.
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