GGRAsia – Genting Singapore sets up Thailand marketing unit

Genting Singapore sets up Thailand marketing unit

Feb 12, 2016 Newsdesk Latest News, Singapore, Top of the deck

Genting Singapore Plc, operator of the Resorts World Sentosa casino resort (pictured) in Singapore, has set up an indirectly held subsidiary for marketing in Thailand its services.

Genting International Services (Thailand) Ltd will be “principally engaged in the business of carrying on the activities of marketing, public relations and promoting the business relating to the leisure and hospitality sector, excluding direct sales to customers,” said Genting Singapore in a filing to the Singapore Exchange.

The entity will be held by Genting Singapore’s direct wholly owned subsidiaries Calidone Ltd and Genting International Services Singapore Pte Ltd.

Visitors from Thailand accounted for fewer than 4 percent – or 470,472 arrivals – of the approximately 13.8 million tourist arrivals to Singapore in the January to November period of 2015. That is according to data from the Singapore Tourism Board published on January 19.

But Thai tourists are regarded an important target market for some casinos in neighbouring Southeast Asian countries such as Cambodia.

The current military government in Thailand appears to have little appetite for legalising casinos within the Buddhist kingdom itself.

In June a minority group on Thailand’s National Reform Council (NRC) suggested legalising casino gaming in the country, according to local media reports at the time. The NRC minority group suggested that Pattaya, a beach destination popular with foreign holidaymakers that is 147 kilometres (91.3 miles) southeast of the capital Bangkok, was a logical location for any casino resort

But weeks later the head of Thailand’s military government, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha – a former commander-in-chief of the Royal Thai Army – ordered what was then his national police chief, General Somyot Poompanmoung, to stop talking up the prospects of that happening, reported the Bangkok Post newspaper.

General Somyot had said illegal gambling was “rampant” within Thailand, and that money raised from taxes on legalised casino gambling could be spent on education and social affairs within the country.