Melco Crown Casino Adopts Family Oriented Strategy For 2015 Launch
Macau Casino’s experienced its biggest decline in casino revenue in over a decade and lost over $100 billion in total revenue. The biggest gambling hub in the world had banked on a strategy of drawing high net individuals to its casinos and then consistently running high-net events that ensured a steady flow of income for casino owners.
When Mainland China decided to crackdown on corruption at the start of 2014, Macau Casinos experienced a drop in customer traffic as most of the high net individuals preferred to avoid the casinos as they were being carefully monitored by the authorities. Initially this did not bother Macau Casino officials as they expected the crackdown on corruption to ease after a few months and things to return to normal. However, the crackdown became even more intense all throughout 2014 and severely dented the revenue of Macau Casinos.
The Melco Crown Casino in which billionaire James Packer has a 33.6% stake is currently under construction and is expected to open its doors during the middle of 2015. Casino officials realize that the old strategy of banking on high net individuals may no longer work in Macau and have decided to try out a new strategy.
Melco Crown representatives have confirmed that the casino will adopt a family friendly approach in order to encourage families with children to visit the casino premises on a regular basis. The casino is being constructed at an estimated cost of $3.9 billion and will have a huge gambling and entertainment complex.
The entertainment complex will be spread across 30,000 square feet and have a fun theme that showcases the likes of Batman, Superman, Tom and Jerry and Wonder Woman. Casino officials have already established partnerships with DC Entertainment, the comic book company and Warner Bros to ensure that the entertainment center is completed on time. Lawrence Ho, the son of billionaire Stanley Ho owns another 33.6% of the Melco Crown.
He is also the CEO of the Melco Crown. In a statement, Lawrence Ho said
Studio City will radically enhance and diversify Macau’s evolving leisure experiences as Melco Crown Entertainment works to anticipate, innovate and ultimately satisfy the ever-growing needs of the region’s and world’s leisure destination visitors.
Some of the other highlights of the Melco Crown casino complex will include a 5000-seat entertainment centre; a 130m tall Ferris wheel, an ongoing production of The House of Magic and the Golden Eye.