Casino services in 4Q best on record: Macau survey

Nov 25, 2016 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck  

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Service quality in Macau casinos has gained a record-high weighting in the latest edition of the Macau Gaming Service Index, which covers the ongoing fourth quarter.

The index’s service quality reading for the fourth quarter this year rose to 2.42 points from 2.11 points in the prior-year period. The index is on a scale where zero is considered the worst-quality service and 3.5 the highest. The latest reading on service quality also captured the highest value since the measurement was first established in 2013.

The index is compiled by the Macau Gaming Research Association and conducted by SGS Hong Kong Ltd. Undercover assessors rated staff in 14 casinos on their “smile”, “proactive attitude” and “tolerance”; the latter category being identified as the level of patience staff had when interacting with clients.

Compared to the sub-index on “smile” and “tolerance”, the sub-index on “proactive attitude” showed the greatest improvement when compared to a year earlier, according to the association’s findings.  The sub-index measuring “proactive attitude” was also the major driver of the overall improvement in the gaming service index, the association said in a press statement on the survey findings.

The index measured nine services inside casinos: security; table games dealers; slot machines; the cage; the membership desk; cloakrooms; complimentary food and drink; the toilets; and the shuttle bus system.

Service quality of table games dealers reached a record-high of 144 points in the second half of 2016, compared to the base of 100 points in 2013, the association noted in its press statement.

The survey visited 14 casinos either directly managed or licensed by the city’s six casino operators.

The venues were: Grand Lisboa, Lisboa, Oceanus, Ponte 16 and Fortuna (all SJM Holdings Ltd); Wynn Palace and Wynn Macau (Wynn Macau Ltd); MGM Macau (MGM China Holdings Ltd); Sands Macao, the Venetian Macao and Sands Cotai Central (all Sands China Ltd); Galaxy Macau (Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd); and City of Dreams and Studio City (Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd).

The Macau Gaming Service Index did not identify which casino operators had the best and worst scores.

But the Macau Gaming Research Association stated that in the next surveys – to be conducted in 2017 – it would enlarge the scope of the research by anonymously sampling the responses of a greater number of casino workers. It would also increase to 20 the number of casinos visited by the survey team.

The association had also taken note of suggestions from casino operators that the survey split the Macau Gaming Service Index in two – one part covering the new area of resorts on Cotai; and one covering the resorts on Macau peninsula. The idea was to reflect the larger scope of casino operations on the Cotai strip compared to the traditional downtown area.

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