Analyst suggests the region go ‘above and beyond’ gaming industry

Grant Govertsen

A Union Gaming analyst has advised Macau to look “above and beyond” the casino gaming market because the region is experiencing a downturn due to Beijing’s anti-corruption crackdown.
“The customer is changing, and it’s changing a lot quicker than the casinos initially expected, but obviously, it’s much more mass-market focused customers rather than VIP,” said Grant Govertsen, speaking to CalvinAyre.com.
The analyst believes that the key is to find out what the mass-market customer wants in addition to casino gaming.
“Obviously, they do enjoy that, but there has to be other [hooks] to get them to come to Macau, […] to make Macau more of a, not necessarily Vegas-like destination, but kind of the same concept where they’re coming for more than gambling,” the analyst noted.
Though he believes that it will take “some number of years and a lot of experimentation,” he is positive that the city-state can evolve from a gambling town into an entertainment destination, similar to Las Vegas.
“[The majority of Las Vegas’s] revenues came from gambling, that’s why people went to Las Vegas, more than any other reason. And as they went and kind of pioneered this integrated resort or [that] entertainment resort concept, you saw that fundamental shift begin to occur and so now Vegas is known much more for entertainment and having fun […] than it is for gambling,” said Govertsen.
When asked what Macau can learn from the Vegas market, the analyst claimed that the state turned into a massive entertainment destination by having “multiple significant numbers of options.”
“Just having one nightclub isn’t going to be enough to draw people from all over the world,” he noted.
“It’s going to be imperative for Macau to figure out how they can do something on a larger scale that will really bring the people in, but again, it comes down to what the customers want and I don’t think, quite frankly, the casinos here know what the answer is yet, and I’m not sure the customers know exactly what they want either,” Govertsen added. Staff reporter