A new 38-story hotel with a casino on South Korea’s popular Jeju Island could be completed by the end of the year, according to one of the lead partners in the project.
Lawrence Teo, vice president and CEO of Lotte Tour Development, which is developing Jeju Dream Tower, as it’s called, in partnership with China’s Greenland Group, issued the tentative timetable earlier this month, saying, “At this stage, we are trying.”
The US$600 million resort had been slated to open in October, according to plans that call for 11 restaurants and bars, retail shops, an observation deck and a 98,000-square-foot casino with 420 machine games and 190 tables restricted under South Korean law to foreign nationals.
Lotte has contracted with Hyatt to operate the 750 rooms and suites in Jeju Dream’s first-phase. A second phase is planned featuring 850 rooms, suites and residences.
The casino will be Lotte’s second on Jeju. Last year, the Seoul-based travel services conglomerate purchased Paradise Group’s gaming floor at the Hotel Lotte Jeju.
Jeju, located in the Korea Strait off the country’s southern coast, is home to eight of South Korea’s 25 casinos, the outgrowth of a resort boom as the island’s autonomous government has moved aggressively in recent years to capitalize on Jeju’s popularity as a destination for tourists from China, who favor it for its warm climate and abundance of natural attractions. In the first half of 2018, mainland Chinese accounted for 52 percent of all overseas tourists, according to government data.
