The MGM Mirage has announced plans to develop a $975 million
waterfront resort and casino in Macau, adding yet another luxury
development to an area that is quickly becoming the casino “Strip”
of Macau.
The MGM Grand Macau, next to the planned Wynn Resorts
development and near the city’s well-known Lisboa Hotel and casino,
will feature 600 rooms, suites and villas, a casino including 300
table games and 1,000 slot machines, several restaurants and
entertainment facilities. Scheduled to open in 2007, the resort
also will have nearly 50,000 square feet available for future
expansion.
“MGM Grand Macau will be a world class facility. The resort will
welcome guests with a dramatic atrium and offer the superlative
hotel, entertainment, spa, dining, retail and convention facilities
for which MGM Mirage is famous the world over,” Terry Lanni,
chairman and chief executive of MGM Mirage, said in making the
announcement.
Construction is set to begin in the second quarter of 2005, with
the property owned and jointly operated by MGM Mirage and Pansy Ho
Chiu-king, managing director of Shun Tak Holdings Ltd., a leading
Hong Kong-based conglomerate operating core businesses in shipping,
property, hospitality and investments.
In recent years Macau, on the western bank of the Pearl River
Delta in the Guangdong province of Southern China, has experienced
a tourism boom fuelled by the liberalization of the gaming industry
in 2002. Last year, Macau officials estimate the number of visitors
to the city reached 17 million, up more than 40 percent from the
previous year. The surge translated into a jackpot for Macau
casinos, which drew an estimated combined revenue of more than $5
billion.
Many of the resort casinos have clustered along the Cotai Strip
development, modeled on the stretch of luxury hotels and casinos in
Las Vegas. Spearheaded by the Las Vegas Sands Corp., the
HotelBenchmark Survey estimates $6 billion will be invested in the
first phase of development that will include 10,000 hotel rooms,
entertainment and business facilities plus an area for concerts and
sporting events.
Hotel companies due to operate on the Cotai Strip include Four
Seasons Hotels, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Marriott
International, Hilton Hotels, Regal Hotels, Dorsett Hotel Group,
InterContinental Hotels, Las Vegas Sands and MGM Mirage. Also under
construction by Wynn Resorts Limited is the Wynn Macau, a 600-room
hotel-casino set to open next year on 16 acres near Macau's inner
harbor.