Resorts World: another HK Disney?

SINGAPORE – Here at TravelMole we tip our hat to an article by Destination Macau on the prospects for Singapore’s integrated resorts following speculation in the market about the coming of ResortsWorld Sentosa, and how well-placed it is to carve out a big slice of the Asian gaming market.

This is thanks largely to an incredible design for the integrated resort and the marketing prowess of its owner, Genting, which owns both the Star Cruises and the Genting resort in the Malaysian highlands.

Destination Macau makes these comments:

The Universal Studios theme park promises to be an amazing experience and will undoubtedly pull in millions of visitors in its first year

However, we do have a problem with over-excited analysts who talk about significant gaming revenue coming out of RWS. Partly this has to do with the way visitation to the theme park is simply assumed to equate to visitation to the casino.

All the marketing RWS has done so far in our neck of the woods suggest it is utterly clueless about how to capture a slice of the US$12 billion-a-year gaming market in Macau, whereas Marina Bay Sands, thanks to the operations of its soon-to-be sister company, Sands China, does.

And if its marketing team thinks that this is a corner of the world that is gagging for a theme park experience, it might want to consider the travails of Hong Kong Disneyland.

Hong Kong media have been full of comments on the aftermath of the decision by Disney to build another theme park around Shanghai.

Mostly, it has been teeth-gnashing about how the Hong Kong park is too small, and how the Shanghai park will be many times bigger.

It is indisputable that Hong Kong Disneyland has been a flop, drawing nowhere near the same crowds as the Venetian does. But none of this debate has focused on the most obvious point of all: mainland Chinese simply don’t find Mickey Mouse a great drawcard.

In fact, we think it can be reliably said, most of the 1.3 billion people who are driving the Asian economy and making every tourism bureau in the region salivate, don’t think much of fancy theme parks at all.

They have safari parks (with emaciated tigers), eco-parks, crocodile parks, and amusement parks galore in China. Like has happened with Cirque du Soleil’s Zaia, they need to see a lot more than a fancy variation of what they have at home to be impressed.

We have no doubt that Universal Studios will be a lot more fun than Disneyland. We are especially looking forward to the Transformers show, and will be taking our kids there soon after it opens.

But will it be enough to get the average mainland Chinese outbound traveler to choose Singapore? We have serious doubts.

The average mainland Chinese outbound gambler, however, is a different story. If you have a theme park where they can drop the kids with the amah while they play in the casino, that’s another thing altogether.

Those are the kind of people visiting Macau. And they won’t likely know a thing about ResortsWorld until well after it is opened.

Don’t write Marina Bay Sands off in the Singapore stakes just yet; they may be behind schedule, but when they turn the lights on, their marketing machine will be far more powerful. Stay tuned.