GGRAsia – Visitor tally to Primorye casinos up 19pct in 2022: govt

Visitor tally to Primorye casinos up 19pct in 2022: govt

Apr 06, 2023 Newsdesk Latest News, Rest of Asia, Top of the deck

The Primorye gambling zone, in the Russian Far East, welcomed more than 463,000 visitors last year, according to local authorities. The figure was up by 19.2 percent compared to 2021, despite “economic and geopolitical obstacles”, the Development Corporation of Primorsky Region JSC stated in a news item on its official website.

The figure represented an average of about 38,600 visitors per month during last year, with the highest monthly tally – a total of 44,454 arrivals – recorded in October.

The development corporation said that of the visitors to the Primorye gambling zone in 2022, around 13 percent were identified as foreign tourists – mainly from China (14,726 visitors) and South Korea (9,512).

There are currently two casino resorts in the Primorye gambling zone, a casino development area located 50 kilometres (31 miles) from Russia’s Pacific port of Vladivostok. The Tigre de Cristal property is majority owned by Summit Ascent Holdings Ltd, a Hong Kong-listed firm controlled by LET Group Holdings Ltd. The Shambala casino resort, run by an entity called Shambala CJSC, was the second casino to launch there.

Summit Ascent said last month that its net revenue from gaming operations at Tigre de Cristal had increased by 37.3 percent in 2022 judged year-on-year, to HKD340.9 million (US$43.4 million). But the company noted that the Russia-Ukraine conflict continued “to bring challenges to the group operationally”.

It added: “The sanctions and the travel alerts to the Russian Federation are still in place… while international flights of our key international destinations have not yet been resumed.”

Hong Kong-listed NagaCorp Ltd said in March last year it would “suspend the development” of its gaming resort in Primorye, citing “uncertainties” around the project. At that time, the firm did not mention either the Ukraine crisis or international sanctions on Russia, although that was hinted by investment analysts.