Mainland tourism up 12 percent
Stricter regulations on high-roller gaming in Macau are nothing but good news for casinos in Cambodia, according to Nike Ngai, chief marketing officer for NagaCorp Ltd.
At a press conference on the firm’s interim results, Ngai said more VIPs are opting out of the MSAR to visit NagaWorld in Phnom Penh, where proxy betting by phone—now banned in Macau—remains legal. He added that more junket promoters are eager to do business in Cambodia.
Visitor arrivals to Cambodia rose 2 percent between January and May, with most coming from Vietnam, China and South Korea, according to the country’s Ministry of Tourism. Visitors from China increased 12 percent. For the same period, Mainland Chinese visits to Macau dropped 0.4 percent despite a 0.1 percent rise in overall arrivals, reported the Nikkei Asian Review.
NagaCorp has announced that Phase II of its casino project will open next year, reported the Macau Business Daily. The new property, Naga2, is expected to add 200 gaming tables plus some 500 to 1,000 slot machines to the property.
For the first half of 2016, the operator posted an increase of 10 percent year-on-year in total gaming revenue for a total of US$277.1 million.
