Jeju Shinhwa World eyes SE Asia players post Covid: CMO

Aug 04, 2023 Newsdesk Latest News, Rest of Asia, Top of the deck  

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The foreigner-only casino business at Jeju Shinhwa World (pictured), a resort on the South Korean holiday island of Jeju, is focusing on attracting customers from Southeast Asia in the aftermath of the pandemic. That is due to their familiarity with South Korean culture as well as the prospects for improving air services from and to those markets.

That is according to Jenny Lim, chief marketing officer (CMO) at the property, which is run by Hong Kong-listed Shin Hwa World Co Ltd. Ms Lim made the comments during a recent GGRAsia visit to the property. She mentioned tourists from Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia, as being among key targets.

“As the Southeast Asian markets are very mature,” in terms of their interest in overseas travel, “our team offices there have been active with promotions”, stated Ms Lim.

Singapore “already has non-stop flights to Jeju,” and Singapore is also “a gateway to Malaysia and Indonesia with easy connections,” she noted.

Ms Lim added that key propositions in marketing Jeju Shinhwa World to overseas customers were the quality of its “people, price and location”.

Those things were “critical” to help encourage people to visit and “revisit our resort,” where they could experience “decent infrastructure for a fair price,” she stated.

She added that the island’s visitor marketing agency, the Jeju Tourism Organization, had been “very supportive” in terms of helping the island’s foreigner-only casino resorts ramp up business after the dip seen during Covid-19.

The tourism office had been working on getting “more flights,” to the island, the executive noted. Jeju International Airport is 40 minutes away from the resort by road.

Ms Lim also referred to golf, a popular sport in the region. The Jeju Shinhwa World site benefitted from having “10 golf courses” within a 20-minute drive. “That is an absolute advantage,” she stated.

She suggested the Philippines and Vietnam would also provide opportunities as source markets of customers, as or when direct flights from those countries to Jeju became available.

“Hong Kong and Taiwan would be other… opportunities,” due to their relative “proximity”, to Jeju, via non-stop flight routes that were either activated or reactivated recently, Ms Lim noted.

Regarding junket business, she explained that there were three major independent promoters in Jeju, focusing on Southeast Asian junket players.

The CMO also suggested that once a casino resort finally opened in Osaka Japan, it and the gaming resort destination of Jeju might work in a complementary way.

She stated that if “exchange between those [two] areas becomes more active with direct flights, we can also design ‘destination package programmes’ for both”.

A number of South Korea’s foreigner-only casinos have historically drawn some of their earnings from Japanese visitors.

Ms Lim also commented on the World Poker Tour (WPT) Korea events held at Jeju Shinhwa World from July 15 to July 24, and which drew more than 750 players. She stated: “We will obtain a lot of insights from WPT, one of the top three world-renowned [poker] brands.”

In other news, Jeju Shinhwa World said recently in a Korean-language social media posting, that the complex was due to open a cinema in early August.

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