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By Likha Cuevas-Miel, Reporter
MOVE over Macau and Singapore,
the newest Asian entertainment hub is rising in Manila.
Seeing that the country sorely
lacks a recognizable tourism marketing point—like Singapore’s
Sentosa or Hong Kong’s Disneyland—the Philippine Amusement and
Gaming Corp. (Pagcor), led by its Chairman and Chief Executive
Efraim C. Genuino, hatched a plan to convert a reclaimed area of
Manila Bay into a bustling world-class entertainment center.
Called the Bagong Nayong Pilipino-Entertainment
City Manila, the 108-hectare project is envisioned to be a fully
integrated resort complex to be built in various phases over the
next 10 years. According to Pagcor, this will allow the state-run
firm to shift from “mere casino gaming into wholesome,
family-oriented recreation and entertainment business.”
The project has been noticed
internationally because it pits the Philippines against Macau as a
gambling center and against Singapore as an entertainment, cultural
and convention destination.
Bagong Nayong Pilipino-Entertainment
City Manila can offer more than just gambling (Macau) or just theme
parks (Sentosa, Singapore). For our capital is the gateway to the
other tourist attractions in the country like miles of pristine
white beaches with crystal blue waters, which Macau and Singapore
don’t have.
Entertainment City would serve as
a jump-off point to other tourist haunts in the Philippines or it
may stand alone as the focal point of a visitor’s stay.
According to Pagcor’s
blueprint, the entertainment complex along Manila Bay will be
divided into specialized areas featuring six-star hotels,
world-class theme parks, educational and cultural complexes. It will
also have shopping malls, a commercial district, sports stadiums,
celebrity-themed restaurants, convention halls, state-of-the-art
theaters, gaming facilities, residential villages, and a hospital
district.
However, the religious sector has
opposed the project. Churchmen see it as a massive scheme to promote
gambling and corrupt the population.
Genuino defended the project. He
said Entertainment City is not a gambling paradise for the casino is
just small part of the whole package.
“In a big hotel with 2,000 to
3,000 rooms, the casino component is very small. With the 40
hectares, you will not build a casino in more than one hectare. For
every 40-hectare of development, only less than 5 percent is casino.
The good thing here is we were able to secure the [commitment of
the] biggest theme park [operator] in the world,” the Pagcor
chairman told the press.
Attracting big-name investors
Pagcor managed to amass huge
investment commitments—at least $8 billion—from some of the
region’s biggest leisure and resort players. Genuino confirmed
that biggest investors would be the Genting group of Malaysia and
the Japanese Aruze group, the partner of US casino mogul Steve Wynn.
Each investor pledged to spend at least $3 billion to help build
Entertainment City.
Both groups also expressed their
intention to start building this year and open their respective
facilities to the public two years from now, Genuino said.
The Genting group tied up with
local conglomerate Alliance Global Group Inc. (AGI), a publicly
listed firm owned by Andrew Tan, for the project. The partnership is
forged between Genting’s Star Cruises Ltd.—the world’s third
largest cruise operator—and AGI’s subsidiary, Travelers
International Hotel Group Inc.
Kingson U. Sian, AGI president
and chief operating officer, said that the terms of the partnership
with Star Cruises are still being threshed out but he is positive
that the capital injection of both companies would go beyond the
minimum requirement of US$1 billion by the government. AGI recently
secured a provisional license from Pagcor, the first among the four
groups to get it.
Based on proposals submitted to
the gaming regulator, the Malaysian group is planning to put up a
theme park over a 35-hectare area it would lease from the
government. Genting is the franchise holder of Universal Studios
theme parks in Asia, one of which is under construction in
Singapore. It also poured about six billion Singapore dollars into
an integrated resort on Sentosa Island.
The Japanese group, on the other
hand, proposes to build the country’s biggest Ferris’ wheel
dubbed as the “Manila Eye” that is similar to that of London.
Aruze also plans to build a
sports arena, a theater, a museum that would host displays of
religious icons, and a 2,500-room hotel and casino. It also plans to
trump the existing Manila Ocean Park by building the country’s
biggest oceanarium within its leased domain.
Kazuo Okada, Aruze group
chairman, told reporters in a recent gaming expo in Manila that the
concept is still up for approval by the government with various
licenses and zoning permits yet to be secured. A Pagcor source who
refused to be named told The Manila Times that rumors of Aruze’s
lack of commitment to the project were not true. “It’s just that
they are waiting for a few details to be ironed out. Besides
AGI-Genting, Aruze is the most serious group in plunking down money
for the project,” the source said.
Bloombury Investments Ltd., a
British Virgin Islands firm, also plans to lease 15 hectares and
inject at least $1 billion for a project that would include three
luxury hotels with a total capacity of 1,500 rooms. The plan also
includes a high-end retail shopping, celebrity-themed dining, a
showroom and museum, and a major entertainment and sports center.
Pagcor said in a statement that these plans are based on initial
talks only and are yet to be finalized.
However, Bloombury still has to
get its act together before it can push on with its application for
a license with Pagcor. The Australian reported that entertainment
and gaming firm Crown Ltd. denied that its chairman, James Packer,
was in “advanced talks” with the British Virgin Islands company
for a possible investment in the Entertainment City. Packer, who
also heads Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd. (PBL), is Australia’s
third richest man.
The third investor is the SM
Investments Corp. (SMIC), one of the country’s biggest
conglomerates that made its fortune in malls, retailing and real
estate. Tessie Sy-Coson, SMIC vice chairperson, said the SM
group’s commitment to the Pagcor initiative involves its own
investments within the Mall of Asia (MOA) Complex that it owns. SMIC
recently engaged hotel services provider Carlson Hotels
Worldwide-Asia Pacific to manage Regent and Radisson branded hotels
within the complex.
She said a casino may be in the
works but nothing is definite yet. Another publicly listed firm,
Belle Corp., may get into the picture and join the SM group in the
casino part of its plans. However, Willy N. Ocier, Belle Corp. vice
chairman, said things are still sketchy and everything is still
under review.
The Pagcor source told The Times
that a racing circuit is also in the works to bring the Formula 1
Grand Prix in the Philippines. The F1, which is the most popular and
well-financed motor racing sport in the world, already has Grand
Prix circuits in Malaysia and Singapore.
A huge boost to Philippine
tourism
Over the next five years, the
Pagcor project would host at least 7,000 hotel rooms and generate at
least 250,000 jobs for Filipinos, most of whom will be employed as
construction workers, hotel staff members and entertainers. The
Entertainment City is also expected to remit at least 25 percent of
its total revenues—in the form of leases and franchise and income
taxes—generated within the complex to the government treasury.
Before the Entertainment City can
be a “distinctive tourist destination” that the government hopes
it would be, there are several things that should be done first. One
of these should be the improvement in the marketing of the
Philippines as a premiere destination.
Observers polled by The Times say
that the government’s marketing efforts pale in comparison with
Malaysia’s branding of “Malaysia, Truly Asia” or with the
tourism campaign of the tiny city-state of Singapore.
Last year, the Philippines only
managed to attract 3.08 million foreign visitors, an anemic number
compared with the 25 million tourists that visited the small Chinese
territory of Hong Kong. With the Entertainment City in the horizon,
the government hopes to catch a fraction of the projected 100
million Chinese tourists that will be traveling abroad by 2010 and
the continuous flow of Asian travelers like Koreans and Japanese.
Before that, the government must
prepare for the influx of tourists by building more roads and
airports to accommodate them. An efficient transport system,
comparable with that of other Asian countries, must be put in place
to make Manila tourist-friendly.
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