Studio City doing better
Lawrence Ho, chairman and CEO of Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd., has announced a $1 billion hotel launch that will start in Macau and spreading to other Asian markets including Japan.
Ho said the company’s first Morpheus hotel, designed by the late, iconic gaming architect Zaha Hadid, will open at City of Dreams Macau in Cotai in the first half of 2018, reported Bloomberg News.
Ho said the company also plans to branch out with casino projects in Cyprus and Russia, where his Summit Ascent Holdings now operates Tigre de Cristal on the Black Sea.
“It’s a global footprint that we are developing,” said Ho, son of gaming legend Stanley Ho. “We’ve done well in Macau and want to see how we can do even better internationally.”
Union Gaming analyst Grant Govertsen says the hotel strategy should be a positive for Melco Crown. “In terms of getting the name out there and growing the customer database, it does make sense to pursue non-gaming opportunities globally,” Govertsen said. “New development that can move the needle for most Macau’s casino operators effectively has to come from overseas development at this point.”
According to the Macau Business Daily, the new hotel’s name, created for the new fifth hotel tower at City of Dreams Macau, refers to Morpheus, “the God of Dreams.”
Morpheus is designed “to satisfy and inspire the dreams of tomorrow’s most sophisticated and aspirational international travelers,” Ho said. He waxed rhapsodic about its “intricately elegant tower in the world’s first free-form exoskeleton high-rise” and also called it one of “the coolest, most distinctive” integrated resorts.
Lionel Leong Vai Tac, Secretary for Economy and Finance said the local government is “delighted to see another iconic landmark being erected in the heart of Macau. We believe it will further enhance Macau’s development of economic diversification.”
And Alexis Tam Chon Weng, secretary for Social Affairs and Culture said, “Having a new hotel designed by an architect as significant as the late Dame Zaha Hadid enriches not only the architectural but also the hospitality landscape of Macau. We’re glad Melco Crown Entertainment has chosen Macau to debut the Morpheus brand, which offers avant-garde hospitality unseen in Macau. It will further reinforce Macau’s reputation as the world center of tourism and leisure.”
Melco Crown has not yet determined if it will add gaming to the hotel tower. “There’s one floor of Morpheus, and I think it’s going to be a few VIP tables or a few premium mass tables,” Ho said.
The company’s most recent project in Macau, the $3.2 billion Hollywood-themed Studio City resort on the Cotai Strip, has struggled to meet expectations. It opened in October 2015, the midst of a two-year slump in Macau’s gaming industry, and Ho expressed his disappointment in the resort’s performance. But visitation has improved in the most recent quarter, Ho said, adding that there is “more potential for Studio City to grow.
“After the Parisian Macao opened, we’ve seen bigger traffic to Studio City.”
He added that the opening of a light rail system serving Taipa and Cotai, due to open in 2019, will add to the resort’s success. “In the long term, we think that Studio City will improve because we like its location near the Lotus Bridge and the border with the mainland, which will also see a connection to a light rapid transit station.”
