Loveman’s best decision; New face at Bellagio

Caesars Entertainment CEO Gary Loveman‘s decision to pull out of the troubled Baha Mar metaresort may represent one of the best judgment calls he ever made. The $3 billion BahaMar_Vert_TM_RENDERED GOLD_4CBahamas resort has missed three deadlines to open and has received the rather dubious governmental assurance that it’s “too big to fail.” (Rule of thumb: Those enterprises which are too big to fail generally do just that.) “It can’t sit there idle it must eventually open,” said a desperate minister of state. Whistling past the graveyard, Tourism Minister Obie Wilchcombe said that when Baha Mar eventually opens, “the same enthusiasm will be there because of what it represents. It will require a tremendous amount of marketing, and a lot of events centred around the opening, but it will be outstanding.”

In the meantime, Sam Nazarian‘s SLS component of Baha Mar managed to ruin the wedding plans of Houston developer Dr. Arpan Gupta, who finds himself stuck with a huge bill after yet Sam_Nazanother construction delay caused SLS to cancel bookings for him, his fiancee and 110 guests. Rather than offer a full refund, SLS wanted Gupta to accept (in addition to a small amount of cash) credits toward a future stay at Baha Mar. Since Gupta “would not go to the Bahamas again unless it was to see the ruins of Baha Mar,” which he likens to Chernobyl, SLS’ offer didn’t fly with him. The cancellation is particularly inscrutable because, according to Gupta’s account, he was assured on April 17 that the hotel would be ready for the wedding, only to been told otherwise days later. “Why couldn’t SLS look out the window on April 15 and see the place was not going to open? I absolutely do not understand,” Gupta wonders. Caesars is well clear of this mess.

* You and I would look at South Korea‘s Jeju Province and see eight casinos catering primarily to Chinese tourists, drawn by visa-free entry. Jeju’s government sees unrealized Korean Flagtax revenues and has commissioned a study “to devise methods to increase taxes by fully investigating the sales revenue of the gambling industry in the province,” as well as to improve the flow-through of those taxes to communities within Jeju. At present, Jeju casinos pay a 20% rate. This news might not sit well with Genting Singapore, which has committed $1.8 billion to build a new, foreigners-only casino on Jeju. However, the company could look at Jeju’s market share (nearly half of all Korean gambling) and 58% visitation increase last year and decide that, hey, what’s a few more percentage points among friends?

* With more players deciding to take a pass on Macao, entrepreneur Tony Fung isn’t missing a trick. His Casino Canberra is actively recruiting Chinese- and Vietnamese-speaking individuals to be casino hosts and dealers.

* S&G congratulates new Bellagio General Manager Olivia Brown. Jamaican by birth and Canadian by upbringing, Brown was Ritz-Carlton‘s Global General Manager of the Year in 2011. Her seven years at Ritz-Carlton were prefaced with 18 at InterContinental Hotels Group. By selecting someone from outside the casino industry, MGM Resorts International has taken another step in the gradual pivot away from gambling and toward a balanced resort product.

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