Sands China boosts dynamic efforts to drive city’s diversification
Sands China continues to strive to nurture and develop industries to boost economic diversification amid the heavy blows dealt by the global health crisis on the city’s economy.
As a company deeply rooted in Macau, Sands China aims to promote the synergistic development of non-gaming elements and the advancement economic diversification – a common goal that all sectors of the Macau community are working together to achieve.
As the government accelerates the “Tourism+” concept, Sands China seeks to lend its support by utilizing its non-gaming facilities – the largest-scale of such facilities in Macau – including 12,000 hotel rooms, MICE space, retail space, entertainment venues, diverse food and beverage outlets and options, and family-friendly leisure facilities.
Sands China is heeding the call to actively cultivate industries suitable for Macau. In doing so, the integrated resort operator has dynamically extended its effort to help attract the ever-expanding middle-class market, extend visitors’ length of stay, stimulate consumer spending, and promote the development of family and MICE tourism.
The move is in line with the government’s push to develop Macau into a world centre of tourism and leisure, as well as its recent strategic plan to promote “Tourism+.”
Expanding MICE space
Macau’s current MICE space has increased nearly 12-fold compared to when the city’s MICE industry first started in 2005. Over the years, Sands China has welcomed 2 million MICE attendees, compared to the city’s 38,000 MICE attendees in 2002 – representing a massive 53-fold increase. Sands China’s MICE facilities have attracted a significant number of multinational giants to hold their grand-scale meetings in Macau, such as Herbalife, Jeunesse Global and Tupperware, as well as some of the world’s leading information technology companies.
Quadrupling Macauís retail space
Sands China’s success and the success of Macau go hand-in-hand. For more than a decade, Sands China has invested in helping the business industry thrive and grow, contributing to the development of local enterprises along the way.
In 2006, Macau had a total retail space of approximately 27,800 sqm. The opening of The Venetian Macao in 2007 quadrupled that number. Today, Macau’s retail space measures 460,000 sqm, with Sands China offering the largest retail space in the city. From 2002 to 2019, the city’s retail sales have experienced a compound annual growth rate of 17%.
Massive entertainment
After the 2007 opening of The Venetian Macao, the integrated resort business model not only helped drive the rapid growth of the retail industry, but also brought a wide range of large-scale entertainment options to Macau, attracting non-gaming customer bases such as families and business travelers to the city.
The world-class entertainment offerings of Macau’s integrated resort operators have enriched the city’s non-gaming elements, helping raise Macau’s international profile.
In terms of the seating capacity of Macau’s entertainment venues, Sands China owns a total of six arenas and theatres, accounting for over 20,000 seats.
The Venetian Macao is home to the 15,000-seat Cotai Arena, which has long-been the only Asian venue in Pollstar’s Top 100 Arena Venues worldwide and has played host to many live concerts by some of the world’s most famous stars since its opening in 2007. Headliners over the years include the Rolling Stones, Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Maroon 5, Bruno Mars, Big Bang, EXO, Jacky Cheung, Eason Chan, Jay Chou, and Sammi Cheng, among many others. The venue has also hosted a number of sporting events, such as boxing matches featuring world-famous Manny Pacquiao and Zou Shiming, and tennis and basketball exhibition matches.
To date, the company’s venues have attracted an accumulated total of 4.6 million attendees, and have hosted more than 610 performances since 2007.
The company is also more than willing to offer venue support to different types of international and local performances and to accommodate venue sponsorship requests by the Cultural Affairs Bureau (ICM), such as for the Macao International Music Festival and the Macao Art Festival, as part of the company’s supportive measures to cultural development.
Art and cultural development
Sands China has brought a wide spectrum of art and cultural events to the city, in order to provide opportunities for cultural enrichment, nurture local art talent, and to let locals and visitors enjoy a true diversity of integrated resort experiences.
The company has been a dynamic supporter of the International Indian Film Academy Awards (IIFA Awards), the Asian Film Awards, and the Huading Awards, among others.
It also seeks to support international and local art and cultural exhibitions. Just one example is Art Macao, the mega international arts and cultural event organised by the Macau government to promote art in city. Sands China collaborated with internationally renowned ceramic artist and curator Caroline Cheng to present two popular ceramic exhibitions for Art Macao: All That’s Gold Does Glitter – An Exhibition of Glamorous Ceramics (2019) and Project Sands X: Beyond the Blue – An Exhibition of Ceramic Extraordinaire (2021).
Sports tourism development
Sports has been identified as key to the diversification of Macau’s economy, with the SAR government strengthening its promotion of sports tourism in 2020. And since setting foot in Macau, Sands China has been bringing in a variety of large-scale international sporting events.
These international events include boxing matches featuring the world-famous Manny Pacquiao and Zou Shiming, tennis and basketball exhibition matches, a football legends clinic, golf tournaments and clinics, the 2021 Sands China Macao International 10K Run, The Grand Prix, and others. The company has not wavered in its support of sporting events in Macau, notwithstanding the difficulties brought on by the pandemic environment.
