The director of business development of Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd. (GEG), John Au, perceives that the city’s gaming industry is not shrinking despite gaming revenues having continuously dropped. In addition, he agrees that it is now good timing for the Special Administrative Region to review its tourism capacity.
Mr. Au, who is also the director of operations of Broadway Macau, said in an interview with Chinese-language newspaper Hong Kong Economic Times that the city should add more non-gaming elements in order to attract more tourists, in addition to reviewing its tourism capacity and the affordability of infrastructure to enhance its tourism competitiveness.
“Have the customers already found Macau boring? We think that the city needs an adjustment period… We don’t think it’s healthy to attract tourists coming here by solely gaming elements,” he told the newspaper.
Meanwhile, although the city’s gaming revenues have been dropping for 14 consecutive months, the GEG business development director indicated that the downturn in revenues does not mean the industry is also dwindling.
Ups and Downs
“Every industry has its highs and lows. Especially since [the economy] of Macau has been rapidly surging for the last 8 to 10 years; it’s impossible for it to continue posting growth of some 20 per cent and 40 per cent [in gaming revenues],” the newspaper quoted the Galaxy executive as saying.
Nevertheless, the gaming executive stressed that Galaxy still emphasises its gaming business, claiming the company is trying to seek a balance between gaming and non-gaming elements.
According to Mr. Au, the completion of Galaxy Phase II and Broadway Macau had enlarged the gaming operator’s total size of non-gaming elements to 95 per cent of the total.
In addition, the gaming executive deduced that the change in the local gaming market was also driven by the changes in the type of tourists.
Mr. Au indicated that the rapid growth in the Chinese economy and its gross domestic product per capita had cultivated a new group of middle-class customers seeking recreation in Macau.
However, at the same time, nearby countries such as Singapore, South Korea and Malaysia are attracting some of the city’s high-rollers, Mr. Au said, who believes the number of high-rollers tend to grow in the opposite direction of the new middle-class tourists and family visitors.
