Mere days ago, City of Dreams Manila had its grand opening and market analysts kept announcing that the mega resort, which cost $1 billion, has all chances of becoming more attractive to players than Macau and Singapore, known to be the most popular gambling hubs in Asia and even on a global scale.
The resort is a result of the joint venture of Melco Crown Entertainment and Belle Corp. The casino floor features 1,700 slot machines, the same number of electronic table games and 380 gaming tables.
The utmost aim of the executives is to attract high roller players and offer unique facilities that would increase the number of tourists visiting the Philippines and therefore, diversify country’s economy.
However, the opening of City of Dreams Manila is not going to be just another event that will be forgotten by the communities within a week and they will be informed about its financial performance every now and then.
On the contrary, the opening of the mega resort will have a great impact on the future development of the gambling sector in Asia.
The company has already consolidated its positions on the Macau gambling market but in the Philippines, things are going to be slightly different.
It is a common knowledge that the majority of Macau-based venues rely on gambling activities in order to generate decent revenues while the revenues from non-gambling activities are considered not too profitable.
However, Lawrence Ho, the CEO of Melco Crown, said that the newly opened resort will generate excellent revenues from non-gambling options since the demand for leisure and entertainment was really high.
What is more, Ho expects 50% of the total revenue to be generated from VIP players and 50% from mass market players.
The biggest issue existing casinos will have to face is the shrinkage of their market since City of Dreams is perfectly capable of attracting large number of players.
Not to mention the fact that the resort has the support of SM Group, the most prominent operator of shopping malls on the territory of the country.
In addition, the complicated situation related to the revenues of Macau and Singapore-based casinos makes the chances of City of Dreams to triumph on the Asian gambling market even higher.
There is another side of the coin, though. in spite of being in a favorable position at the moment, market analysts hurried up to remind that City of Dreams is going to face serious rivalry since at least two new casino resorts will be established in the region in the next few years.
