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17-04-2014, 05:00 PM
An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:
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April 13, 2014 7:00 am JST
Singapore's love-hate relationship with its casinos
WATARU YOSHIDA, Nikkei staff writer
http://asia.nikkei.com/var/site_cache/storage/images/node_43/node_51/2014/201404/20140411/20140412_marinabay/605187-1-eng-GB/20140412_marinabay_article_thumbnail.jpg
The Marina Bay Sands casino and resort complex exerts a strong pull on foreign tourists in Singapore. (Courtesy of Marine Bay Sands)
SINGAPORE -- Policymakers in Singapore are faced with a tough challenge: how to build up the casino industry while preserving the safe, squeaky-clean image they have worked so hard to create for the country.
Some rules that apply outside the city-state's two casinos -- such as a strict ban on indoor smoking, which carries fines as high as 1,000 Singapore dollars ($800) -- are waived for the gambling facilities. The government wants to promote these powerful magnets for foreign tourism without negative spillover into society.
One of the casinos is the Marina Bay Sands. Known for its spectacular design marked by three hotel towers capped by a single horizontal structure that looks like a cruise ship, the resort complex can wow even jaded travelers. It has separate entrances for foreigners and Singaporeans. Foreign visitors can enter for free by simply flashing their passports, but Singaporeans have to pay 100 Singapore dollars to get in.
Both the Marine Bay Sands and the Resorts World Sentosa, the country's other casino and resort complex, opened in 2010 amid controversy over how they would impact society. Critics argued that the facilities would erode public security and trigger a rise in gambling addiction. One of the government's responses to such concerns was to make it expensive for locals to patronize the casinos.
Pulling them in
From the beginning, the idea was to draw tourists from abroad and discourage business from Singaporeans. Four years on, both complexes are flourishing, providing a boon to Singapore's tourism industry. According to preliminary data, roughly 15.5 million foreign tourists visited the city-state in 2013, up 60% from 2009, before the casinos opened. The country's total tourism income surged 80% during the same period.
The occupancy rate of the Marine Bay Sands hotel adjacent to the casino is 98.6%. Sheldon Adelson, CEO of Las Vegas Sands, which owns and operates the Singaporean complex, says the sprawling facility has only been good for Singapore and has added a new attraction in the country.
There is no question the casinos are driving the growth of Singapore's tourism sector, but the government has shown conflicted feelings about the huge success of the casino industry.
A senior official at the country's Tourism Board says no decision has been made on whether to allow a new casino to be built. And in June last year, the government introduced a rule restricting the number of times Singaporeans with incomes below a certain threshold can enter a casino. The move reflects growing concerns about the ranks of addicted local gamblers who frequent casinos despite the high entrance fee.
Singaporean bureaucrats are regarded as being among the country's best and brightest. Most are from elite schools and all are rigorously screened and trained -- a legacy of the system established under the strong leadership of Lee Kuan Yew, the country's founding father and first prime minister, who ruled for three decades. Many of them regard casinos as a necessary evil to attract tourists.
The short-term results have been impressive from an earnings perspective, but a number of policymakers feel uneasy about possible long-term negative side effects of the casino industry.
Copyright © 2014 Nikkei Inc. All rights reserved.
Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com (http://singsupplies.com/showthread.php?179655-Sinkieland-s-love-hate-relationship-with-the-casinos&goto=newpost).
http://asia.nikkei.com/images/img_logo.png
April 13, 2014 7:00 am JST
Singapore's love-hate relationship with its casinos
WATARU YOSHIDA, Nikkei staff writer
http://asia.nikkei.com/var/site_cache/storage/images/node_43/node_51/2014/201404/20140411/20140412_marinabay/605187-1-eng-GB/20140412_marinabay_article_thumbnail.jpg
The Marina Bay Sands casino and resort complex exerts a strong pull on foreign tourists in Singapore. (Courtesy of Marine Bay Sands)
SINGAPORE -- Policymakers in Singapore are faced with a tough challenge: how to build up the casino industry while preserving the safe, squeaky-clean image they have worked so hard to create for the country.
Some rules that apply outside the city-state's two casinos -- such as a strict ban on indoor smoking, which carries fines as high as 1,000 Singapore dollars ($800) -- are waived for the gambling facilities. The government wants to promote these powerful magnets for foreign tourism without negative spillover into society.
One of the casinos is the Marina Bay Sands. Known for its spectacular design marked by three hotel towers capped by a single horizontal structure that looks like a cruise ship, the resort complex can wow even jaded travelers. It has separate entrances for foreigners and Singaporeans. Foreign visitors can enter for free by simply flashing their passports, but Singaporeans have to pay 100 Singapore dollars to get in.
Both the Marine Bay Sands and the Resorts World Sentosa, the country's other casino and resort complex, opened in 2010 amid controversy over how they would impact society. Critics argued that the facilities would erode public security and trigger a rise in gambling addiction. One of the government's responses to such concerns was to make it expensive for locals to patronize the casinos.
Pulling them in
From the beginning, the idea was to draw tourists from abroad and discourage business from Singaporeans. Four years on, both complexes are flourishing, providing a boon to Singapore's tourism industry. According to preliminary data, roughly 15.5 million foreign tourists visited the city-state in 2013, up 60% from 2009, before the casinos opened. The country's total tourism income surged 80% during the same period.
The occupancy rate of the Marine Bay Sands hotel adjacent to the casino is 98.6%. Sheldon Adelson, CEO of Las Vegas Sands, which owns and operates the Singaporean complex, says the sprawling facility has only been good for Singapore and has added a new attraction in the country.
There is no question the casinos are driving the growth of Singapore's tourism sector, but the government has shown conflicted feelings about the huge success of the casino industry.
A senior official at the country's Tourism Board says no decision has been made on whether to allow a new casino to be built. And in June last year, the government introduced a rule restricting the number of times Singaporeans with incomes below a certain threshold can enter a casino. The move reflects growing concerns about the ranks of addicted local gamblers who frequent casinos despite the high entrance fee.
Singaporean bureaucrats are regarded as being among the country's best and brightest. Most are from elite schools and all are rigorously screened and trained -- a legacy of the system established under the strong leadership of Lee Kuan Yew, the country's founding father and first prime minister, who ruled for three decades. Many of them regard casinos as a necessary evil to attract tourists.
The short-term results have been impressive from an earnings perspective, but a number of policymakers feel uneasy about possible long-term negative side effects of the casino industry.
Copyright © 2014 Nikkei Inc. All rights reserved.
Click here to view the whole thread at www.sammyboy.com (http://singsupplies.com/showthread.php?179655-Sinkieland-s-love-hate-relationship-with-the-casinos&goto=newpost).