Will Singapore’s casinos be tourist magnets?

The plan…

Back in 2005 Singapore’s Trade and Industry Minister Lim Hng Kiang unveiled what many considered overly optimistic plans to double the country’s tourism by 2015.

The ambitious 10 year plan had a number of key published targets.  These included the creation of 100,000 new tourism related jobs, doubling annual visitor numbers to 17 million and  tripling annual tourism spend to S$30 billion.  Not only were they looking for more visitors, but they also wanted to squeeze a lot more cash-per-head from them!

The targets…

Not surprisingly, the Singapore Tourism Board (“STB”) were looking to the burgeoning middle and upper classes of India and particularly China to make up the lion’s share of this increase.  Anticipated growth in the number of travelers from these countries was (and still is) expected to be so large, that the STB believed they would only have to maintain or slightly improve on their current 6% share of Asia-Pacific region tourism spend to hit their visitor growth targets.

The tools…

It’s no coincidence that the Lim Hng Kiang’s announcement came around the same time as changes to laws prohibiting casinos and inviting tenders for the construction of two major integrated casino resorts.  The fact that the initial Request for Concepts (“RFC”) and then subsequent shortlisted Requests for Proposals (“RFP”) were to be submitted to and assessed by the STB, further cements the contention that the casinos are intended to play an integral part Singapore’s grand tourism plan.

A footnote to the RFC actually stated,

“…It is expected that international patrons, instead of local residents, will contribute a larger proportion of total gaming revenues.”

Integrated casino resorts as tourism magnets…

The big question that remains of course, is whether The Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa will pull the number of tourists the Singapore government hopes they will.

That they are spectacular and compelling attractions is hard to argue.  At around $5 billion a piece they have as much, if not more wow-factor as any casino resorts in the world.  But can casinos alone pull that many overseas visitors?  The folk at Las Vegas Sands seem pretty confident, calling the Marina Bay a casino that will drive tourism…but they have to say that.

A useful example of pure casino pulling power is Macau. With a local population of only 500,000, Macau saw tourist numbers increase from 11.5 million in 2002 to 30.2 million in 2008. This massive increase was largely driven by construction of new casino resorts following an end to Stanley Ho’s monopoly over casino concessions in 2001.  The clear message is build very big shiny new casinos, and the visitors will come.  Granted, Macau is closer to Mainland China, but if their casinos can increase tourism by 20 million in 6 years, Singapore’s 8 million increase in 10 years starts to look more than achievable.