Genting Wins Singapore Casino Contract
AP December 8, 2006
Genting Wins Singapore Casino Contract
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SINGAPORE (AP) — Singapore on Friday awarded its second casino resort contract to Genting International, whose $3.38 billion proposal promises to lure thousands of visitors with a Universal Studios theme park and a huge outdoor marine park.
Malaysia’s Genting, partnered with Star Cruises, was the analysts’ choice over its two competitors to build and operate the integrated resort, which is scheduled to open in 2010 on a 121-acre plot on Sentosa Island.
Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister S. Jayakumar told a news conference that Genting provided ‘the most compelling proposal overall that best meets our economic and tourism objectives.’
‘In particular, the proposal reflects our vision for the Sentosa integrated resort as a large scale family resort with its host of world-class family leisure activities and other strong offerings,’ Jayakumar said.
The two other bidders for the contract were Bahamas-based Kerzner International Ltd. and Eighth Wonder, a Las Vegas-based company whose founder Mark Advent created the New York New York casino.
The second casino, which will be called Resorts World at Sentosa, is expected to attract new and repeat tourism and raise Singapore’s profile as a family destination.
Resorts World at Sentosa will include six hotels — one designed by American architect Michael Graves — with more than 1,800 rooms.
It is expected to contribute 2.7 billion Singapore dollars ($1.75 billion) to Singapore’s economy, or 0.8 percent of the city-state’s gross domestic product, as well as add 30,000 jobs by 2015, Trade Minister Lim Hng Kiang said.
Officials also praised the bid for a design that reflected the tropical resort feel of the island, with extensive use of water, stone and wood materials and landscaping.
Genting’s proposal promises an 20-acre marine park where visitors can snorkel with 200 species of animals and stop by a whale shark lagoon.
Resorts World at Sentosa will also include a Universal Studios theme park with 22 attractions, 16 designed specifically for Singapore, and a DreamWorks animation studio. The Universal Studios theme park will take up roughly half of the site.
The resort will have meeting facilities, retail stores and a 1,600-seat theater for a resident show by the team behind Cirque du Soleil.
Singapore last year reversed its decades-old ban on casino gambling in an ambitious attempt to double visitor arrivals to 17 million by 2015. The first contract was awarded in May to Las Vegas Sands Corp., which plans to open its $3.6 billion casino resort by July 2009.
For the second casino, the government evaluated the proposals based on tourism appeal — a hefty 45 percent of the criteria — architectural design, level of investment and strength of the bidding consortium and partners.
Bahamas-based Kerzner had teamed up with CapitaLand, Southeast Asia’s largest property developer, with a $3.4 billion proposal to build a futuristic version of its Bahamas Atlantis resort which included the world’s largest aquarium.
Eighth Wonder led a four-partner consortium that envisioned a $3.57 billion resort built into a hollowed-out volcano crater, with a 10-story-high waterfall that was to part each evening for a nightly show of acrobats and dancers.
