Saturday, July 15, 2006

As reported by the Japan Times: "The massive Venetian Macao casino resort is
set to open in 2007, and there are hopes that this mega resort, which will
feature one of the biggest convention centers in Asia, will lure Japanese
who are doing business in China. "It is being built by Venetian Macao Ltd.,
a unit of U.S. casino giant Las Vegas Sands Corp., and is based on the same
concept as the famous Venetian in Las Vegas. "'We see this as being very
important in terms of a shop window either to sell to China or to buy from
China,' Frank McFadden, chief operating officer of Venetian Macao, said in a
recent interview. "McFadden expects Japanese businesspeople will come and
attend conferences and exhibitions held at 'Asia's Las Vegas' due to its
proximity to mainland China. ".Currently, Japanese account for less than 1
percent of total visitors to Macau, though the number is rising in line with
overall growth. In the January-April period, the number of visitor arrivals
totaled 7.12 million, up 19.6 percent from a year earlier, and 62,833 of
them came from Japan, up 18.6 percent, according to government data.

"Given the company's estimates of 38 million visitor arrivals in 2010 based
on assumed annual growth of 5 percent from 18.7 million in 2005, McFadden
sounds optimistic also about Japanese visitors.

"Fewer Japanese are coming to Macau now because there are no direct flights
and no reasons for business tourists to come because there are no
conferences, exhibitions or big conventions, McFadden said.

"For tourists on long weekends, Macau airport is already discussing direct
flights with two Japanese airlines, he noted, 'So people can quickly come to
spend weekends in Macau.'."