An investment firm backed by the Rockefeller family is partnering with a Vietnamese oil company to develop a US.5 billion mixed-use resort on the country’s south-central coast.
Rose Rock Group and Vung Ro Petroleum Co. have selected a 200,000-square-meter site on Vung Ro Bay for planned attractions that will include 760 hotel rooms, 4,400 residences, retail shopping and 350 marina berths.
“We look forward to making this development an outstanding and preferred destination in the Asia-Pacific region for visitors and a lifestyle choice for residents,” said Collin Eckles, president of Rose Rock, which specializes in real estate, health care and arts and culture projects and has developments in China.
A joint e-mail statement released by the partners did not say if they would seek a casino. But the announcement comes as interest in Vietnam as a gambling destination is building among domestic and foreign investors, whose ranks have included global industry names of the likes of Las Vegas Sands, Genting and Casinos Austria International.
VinaCapital Group, the country’s largest fund manager, is planning to build a $4 billion casino resort in Quang Nam province also on the south-central coast. The company also owns a beach resort in Danang.
“We see central Vietnam as at the beginning phase of a growth stage,” said the firm’s CEO Don Lam. “If you look at southern China, it’s only a one-and-a-half-hour flight to beaches. The hotel costs are lower. And it’s a new destination.”
The number of international visitors to the country increased 11 percent last year, according to official statistics, totaling more than 45 million and good for an estimated US$10 billion in revenues.
The existing gaming industry, though, is small, confined to 20 or so machine gaming venues in hotels and six or seven casinos restricted to foreign passport holders. The largest is the $500 million Grand – Ho Tram, which opened last July on the South China Sea coast about 70 miles from Ho Chi Minh City with close to 500 five-star hotel rooms. The country’s other casinos are modest by comparison, most in the north of the country targeting gamblers from China.
The group behind Ho Tram, Canada-based Asian Coast Development, envisions the facility as the anchor of an expansive beachfront destination covering more than two kilometers. But the casino has struggled in the absence of domestic play.
