The non-gaming projects mandated from Macau’s six casino operators by the city’s government would be of greater benefit to the local community and the operators themselves, if there were greater consultation with the public.
That is the suggestion of casino industry veteran Niall Murray (pictured), who now chairs sector consultancy Murray International (Macau) Co Ltd. His comments to GGRAsia were on the sidelines of a France Macau Chamber of Commerce event on Wednesday at which he was also a guest speaker on the topic of mounting regional competition to Macau’s gaming and leisure sectors.
The city’s six casino operators were initially required to commit collectively MOP108.7 billion (US$13.5 billion currently) for non-gaming investment, as a condition of their 10-year gaming concessions that began in January 2023. Subsequently that went up by 20 percent, after Macau’s market-wide casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) surpassed a predetermined threshold of MOP180-billion in full-year 2023.
Mr Murray said the required pledges were a “good start” for Macau to develop non-gaming products with consumer appeal. Nonetheless he noted that the system setup – which includes a need for government monitoring on a quarterly basis via a review of operators’ work – produced outcomes that are not aired to the public.
The Macau public, as a result, did not get any insight on whether there was a “comprehensive” and “strategic” plan.
Mr Murray told GGRAsia: “It’s a sensitive issue that each IR [integrated resort] is competing with the others.”
He added: “They don’t want to come up with an amazing strategic development plan, because the other five may come along a week later and say ‘Oh, we’re going to do that too’.
“It is a challenge. Confidentiality, on one hand, and, integrated strategy on the other, are two substances that don’t mix well,” the industry consultant remarked.
Project review, boost for IR hotel non-gaming
Mr Murray suggested a fix to allow public input on operator non-gaming projects while also permitting the government to have a confidential review of non-gaming.
There could be “a briefing that keeps confidential, maybe not even name [of the operator], but what [project] is coming alive,” Mr Murray said.
His observations come shortly after a local legislator claimed one particular neighbourhood improvement scheme by a casino operator in downtown Macau – including an element of pedestrianisation – had actually coincided with trade deteriorating for local businesses.
Mr Murray suggested a first step for non-gaming investment could be closer to home for the operators – in value-adding non-gaming services for consumers, in the hotels the concessionaires run at their resorts.
He stated: “Macau has [nearly] 44,000 hotel rooms, and they’re mostly four-star, five-star, and over 85 percent of them are already occupied, with complimentaries from the casino”. That was a reference to free services specifically for top gaming customers.
“That needs to be rectified and offered at a more affordable level, too,” he added, referring to benefits for lower-tier customers.
In his Wednesday talk to the business chamber, Mr Murray spoke about the increased competition faced by Macau from other gaming markets in Asia. Those ranged from the potentially significant emerging markets of Thailand and the United Arab Emirates to the mature markets of the Philippines and Singapore.
Singapore, he suggested, had demonstrated a successful public and private cooperation and a “competitive” IR strategy.
That was evidenced he said, by the city-state’s casino duopoly – Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa – committing a combined SGD9-billion (circa US$7.0 billion currently) in expansion projects.
The Singapore government for its part, was working to increase the country’s annual tourist-arrival capacity with a fifth terminal for its airport at Changi, which would eventually link the city-state to 200 cities by 2030, compared to 150 today, Mr Murray mentioned in his Wednesday talk.
