Europe can be the next step

Las Vegas Sands Corp. entered Asia hungry for business. They invested strongly in Macau and soon after they started building in Singapore. But the company, says chairman Sheldon Adelson, doesn’t want to stop there.
Japan, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Korea and Taiwan are all potential markets, but the world’s most valuable casino firm has held talks about building integrated resorts in Greece, Italy and Spain, Adelson said yesterday at a news conference in Singapore, prior to the grand opening of the Marina Bay Sands.
“By all means we are interested in the Korean market. If the Government allows Korean nationals to come into the casino the answer is yes, an enthusiastic yes,” the casino and tourism mogul said yesterday to reporters. Adelson also said he’d also like to open in Japan. “It depends on the Government, but we’d be the first candidate,’’ he stressed.
For Adelson, Asians’ love of gambling, especially in China, is so strong that the equivalent of five Las Vegases would not be enough to satisfy demand. “I don’t know any Chinese person who doesn’t play mah-jong. I don’t even know any Chinese person that doesn’t play mah-jong for money,” the gaming tycoon added.
“I believe we can put the equivalent of five plus Las Vegases, with 140,000 hotel rooms each in five different locations in Asia, and it still won’t saturate the demand,” he said.
But many other countries have similar or even bigger potential. India, the businessman said, is losing out on billions because of the government’s disinterest in seeking out new avenues like casino tourism and integrated resorts, the news agency Press Trust of India (PTI) reported.
“India is such a fascinating country but receives only about 3.5 million foreign tourists a year, which baffles me. I am really keen on setting up an integrated resort experience on the lines of the Las Vegas strip in India, anywhere Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore or Delhi. But the government is sadly not keen,” Adelson told PTI.
Aside from other Asian countries, LVS chairman wouldn’t mind investing more in China, especially in Hainan Island, if the necessary changes are made. “I know it’s an island like Hong Kong and Macau, but [China] has different rules for provinces and SAR’s. We would be interested if we had the opportunity,” he said.
For having the opportunity, Adelson means opening the Hainan market to gaming. “MICE facilities and showrooms don’t make money, we need the casino to subsidise those returns. These amenities feed on one another,” he stressed, adding that the Chinese Government has to define clearly the visa policy, not just “turning it on and off.”
He continued: “If a company wants to diversify and wants to be a leader in tourism it has to have all the components. In Macau, nobody wants to do that except us. […] We designed something that wasn’t casino-centric and now everybody is copying us.”
Outside of Asia, the gaming tycoon said he is looking at the possibility of developing a gaming strip in Mediterranean Europe, most likely in a major metropolitan location in Italy, Spain or Greece. “It would be something similar to what we have in the Cotai Strip in Macau,” he added.