Azov City zone closed December 29
Just days after the closure of Russia’s Azov City gaming zone, a second casino opened in the Krasnaya Polyana zone. The Boomerang casino, operated by Domain, operator of the zone, opened its doors on January 4.
At present, only the first floor of the gaming hall, with a casino and restaurant, is open to the public. A sports bar and nightclub are planned for the second floor. According to Asia Gaming Brief, Boomerang offers 204 slot machines and 20 gaming tables and is targeted at gamblers between the ages of 26 and 45.
At the property’s grand opening, Krasnaya Polyana Development Director Dmitry Afinogenov said he wants the zone “to adequately compete with Las Vegas and Macau casinos,” with a strong international customer base.
To that end, he added, in 2018, direct flights between Israel and Sochi were launched, “thanks to which more than 40,000 Israelis visited the gambling facilities of Krasnaya Polyana. This year we plan to launch direct flights from Delhi and Mumbai to Sochi. We hope that our government will meet us halfway, and we will see some kind of visa relief for both Sochi and Russia as a whole.”
The most successful of Russia’s dedicated gaming sectors is the Primorye Integrated Entertainment Zone near Vladivostok in the Russian Far East. The PIEZ occupies 619 hectares (1,530 acres), and about a dozen properties could be built during Phase I of the zone’s development; currently, however, only one is operational: Tigre de Cristal, operated by Summit Ascent Holdings, which opened in October 2015. Developments now under construction include NagaCorp’s Naga Vladivostok integrated resort; Diamond Fortune Holdings’ Selena resort; and a third project to be developed by CJSC Shambala. Konstantin Shestakov, director of the Department of Tourism of the Primorsky provincial government, told GGRAsia that the development of an entertainment cluster with a number of casino resorts is a “very important” step to boost tourism.
“This is a vital project for us for several reasons: attracting foreign investment; engaging more foreign companies; diversifying our tourism offering; developing transport infrastructure; and increasing the number of hotel rooms,” he told the news outlet. Primorsky’s primary feeder markets are Mainland China, South Korea and Japan.
Shestakov said visitation to Primorsky has “doubled in the last two or three year. The increase is not very significant in actual numbers, but is very encouraging.”
For full-year 2018, he said, “We expect the biggest increase to be in the South Korean market, namely due to better accessibility to the region for Koreans, with better infrastructure, more flights from South Korea and promotional activities with South Korean companies.”
