South Korea’s Paradise City Casino Drawing Over 3k Visitors Daily

South Korea’s newly opened Paradise City casino resort has announced that in its first 100 days’ of operation it has attracted a daily average of nearly 3,100 visitors.

So far it has recorded a total of nearly 310,000 visitors.

The foreigner-only casino located in Incheon opened on April 20, 2017. The port city of Incheon is a major regional destination for tourists and the casino is situated near the main international airport which services the capital city of Seoul.

The $1.1 billion property spread over the 330,000-square- metre (3.58 million-sq- foot) site has been developed by South Korean gaming operator Paradise Co Ltd along with Japanese pachinko operator Sega Sammy Holdings Inc. Paradise City is the first Las Vegas-style integrated resort in the region.

Paradise City

The operator had claimed at the time of its opening that it will attract nearly 1.5 million people in 2017. A spokesperson with the operator told a local newspaper that the occupancy at the property’s hotel was 90 percent since its opening.

The first phase of Paradise City developed with an investment of KRW1.3 trillion ($1.16 billion) offers 281 slot machines, 154 table games plus four electronic games installations. The first phase also has a 711-room hotel, several restaurants and bars, entertainment venues and health facilities. In the subsequent phases, new entertainment offerings and a boutique hotel are planned. The spokesperson stated that the development of the second phase was currently at 55 percent.

Incheon is also seeing the development of two more major gaming projects. The construction of a $1.6 billion casino resort by U.S. tribal casino operator Mohegan Gaming and Entertainment along with its partners local partners chemicals giant KCC Corp and the Incheon International Airport Corp. The project is expected to be completed by the end of 2017.

The other major project is the casino resort being developed by U.S. casino operator Caesars Entertainment Corp in partnership with mainland China real estate developer Guangzhou R&F Properties Co Ltd. Construction. The project is expected to be completed before the end of September 2017.

In addition to its casino in Incheon, Paradise Co. operates three other foreigner-only casinos-Jeju Grand on Jeju Island, Walkerhill in Seoul and Busan Casino in the port city of Busan. According to filings made by the company earlier this month, revenue for the company dropped 20.7 percent in the first half of the year due to a poor performance of the gaming sector, possibly due to the ban by China on travel to South Korea.

Adrian Sterne

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