A Philippine politician and businessman hopes Macau gaming giant Galaxy Entertainment Group (GEG) will revisit its decision to pull out of a casino development planned for the holiday island of Boracay. But GEG says no dice.
According to the Philippine Inquirer, Bacolod City Mayor Albee Benitez said, “It’s just a matter of getting (GEG’s) comfort level high enough to return.”
DigiPlus Interactive Corp., formerly Leisure and Resorts World Corp., first proposed the resort development in 2017. GEG expressed interest at that time, but in 2018, then-president Rodrigo Duterte banned construction of new casinos on Boracay, saying other resorts had polluted the environment. Duterte closed the island for a six-month clean-up, and in 2019, Leisure and Resorts World shelved its development plans.
In 2021, the national government indicated it may once again be open to the development, and in June of this year, another Philippine conglomerate, Alliance Global Group Inc., said it, too, is interested in building a casino on Boracay.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer suggests that relations between China and the Philippines may have helped to revive the project, as GEG Entertainment’s customers in Macau “are mostly Chinese.”
According to GGRAsia, Benitez said current President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. recognizes “the value of bringing over a world-class operator to the Philippines. Let’s look at it from an international tourism perspective, because that’s where the resources (and) the dollars are, in that it can propel the country into greater heights.”
But Inside Asian Gaming reports that GEG is no longer interested. The news outlet cited an October 16 statement from the company saying, “Contrary to some recent media reports, GEG is not considering re-entering Boracay in the Philippines to develop a resort.
“Our recent focus is on the full reopening of Macau, ramping up our recently launched Phase 3 and the construction of Phase 4.”
Even so, Benitez continues to pursue the issue. He asked GEG, “What will it take for you to come back in again? … All the plans and designs are already finished. It is already in the international map, international radar speed.”
IAG theorized that before committing itself, GEG may want assurances that the local government will not impose limits on tourist traffic, as discussed in the past.
