Venetian Macau rolls the dice today
MACAU – The US$2.4 billion Venetian Macau, operated by the Las Vegas giant Sands, will be the world’s biggest casino when it opens today. Only two buildings in the world — a Nasa facility in Florida and the Aalsmeer flower market in Holland – are reported to be bigger by floor area.
The behemoth has 3,000 rooms, a fleet of gondolas along its shop-lined canals, and a replica of Venice’s landmark Bridge of Sighs.
The opening of Venetian Macao will force rivals to step up their game or “shrivel up and die”, according to the company’s president and chief operating officer.
“A huge gauntlet has been thrown down to the marketplace,” William Weidner told the Financial Times. “You have to build the physical infrastructure to draw the customer.”
The Venetian has 3,000 suites – equivalent to 25 per cent of Macao’s stock of hotel rooms – and 1.2m sq ft of convention space.
“We had to build critical mass,” Weidner said. “The leap here is to move Macao from a day market to a multi-day stay market. You need all the bells and whistles to do that.”
Weidner also recalled his first visit to Macao and Stanley Ho’s original flagship casino, the Lisboa, as a young industry executive in 1980.
“It was just an amazing sight. The Lisboa looked like the cockfight scene in The Deer Hunter,” Weidner said. “We in Las Vegas couldn’t believe a place as poorly executed as the Lisboa did as well as it did.”
Ian Jarrett
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