Gaming operators to cut costs amid slump

Las Vegas Sands Corp., grappling with a gambling slowdown in Macau may be reconsidering big-ticket entertainment events.
Betting in Macau has fallen for nine months as a crackdown on corruption by the Chinese government prompts high-
rollers to avoid conspicuous consumption. Last week, Sands president Rob Goldstein told investors at a JPMorgan Chase & Co. conference to expect cuts to the Las Vegas-based company’s marketing and entertainment budget. He didn’t provide details.
“We’re not looking to take it apart, the whole structure, but reexamine where those opportunities to run it cleaner and better,” Goldstein said.
Casino revenue in Macau fell 49 percent to 19.5 billion patacas (USD2.4 billion) in February, the steepest drop since the government opened the region to foreign operators in 2002.
Sands has focused its Macau operation on the mass market, which has been less affected by the slowdown, Goldstein said.
The company operates more than 9,500 hotel rooms in Macau, including a Sheraton and Holiday Inn. And its Venetian shopping mall is “performing better than ever,” Goldstein said.
Sands, founded by billionaire Sheldon Adelson, isn’t alone in seeking costs cuts in Macau. Wynn Resorts Ltd. has encouraged staffers to take leave following the usually busy Chinese New Year holiday last month.
“As all operators do during seasonally low periods, we encourage team members to take vacation time, whether paid or unpaid,” Michael Weaver, a spokesman for the company, said in an e-mail. “We’ve not made any substantive changes to our operations in Macau.”
Following reports that Wynn Macau is urging some of its staff to take unpaid leave the Secretary for Economy and Finance, Lionel Leong, encouraged casino operators to promote paid training instead of unpaid leave for their staff during quieter gaming periods.
Leong advised that gaming companies should mull offering paid training in lieu of unpaid leave for their staff. “We require gaming operators to provide more vocational training and not to force employees to go on unpaid leave. We want them to give them a salary while they are being trained and this can boost employee upward mobility as well as horizontal mobility to non-gaming areas,” he said.
Wynn Macau acknowledged to TDM the content of several text messages. According to the messages, there are a small number of quotas available for applications for days off during the morning, afternoon and night shifts between March 9 and March 15.  MDT/Bloomberg

secretary pledges higher support to smes

Lionel Leong has said that the authorities will step up efforts to support local small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), in a bid to enhance the competitiveness of the local economy. Speaking to the media, the Secretary for Economy and Finance said that he is pursuing three aims: to boost regional cooperation, to encourage new people to create new businesses, and to improve the foreign worker management system. “How do we really help the SMEs? Actually the majority of SMEs get the benefits very indirectly from a big economic environment, maybe through purchasing from gaming firms. (…) But we could boost our community’s economy so they can have direct contact with the tourists and directly benefit from tourism,” he said, as cited by TDM. The secretary suggested that rental prices for major tourist sites would decrease in the future, as the government achieves its aim of diverting tourists through the walking tour scheme.