South Korea’s Tourism Ministry says it is loosening its rules on gaming investment in support of a new task force whose aim is to promote the development of more integrated resorts of the type under construction on Yeongjong Island near Seoul and on the holiday island of Jeju.
The Korea Herald said the announcement coincided with a report the ministry delivered at a meeting of the Trade and Investment Promotion Committee presided over by President Park Geun-hye.
“Asian nations such as Macau and Singapore are competitively building global resort complexes to attract foreign tourists, but South Korea has fallen behind in building world-class casinos,” the report stated. “We will look at the ongoing resort projects and form a task force team to help resolve their difficulties.”
The news points up a strategic shift in the attitude of official South Korea, which historically has looked askance at casinos and still forbids its citizens from entering 16 of the 17 that currently operate, limiting them to the state-run Kangwon Land in the remote northeast of the country.
The country generated the equivalent of US$2.7 billion in gaming revenue last year. That was slightly higher than the Philippines’ $2.6 billion but well behind Singapore’s $6.4 billion, and government is looking at the boom in travel out of China as a way to boost its struggling, export-driven economy.
To lower legal hurdles for foreign investment, the Tourism Ministry said it will introduce a bidding system for selecting casino operators that is designed to speed up preliminary approvals.
Such an approval, granted in March, has allowed a consortium led by Las Vegas-based Caesars Entertainment to plan a 746 billion won (US$699 million) destination casino on Yeongjong, where the country’s largest foreigners-only operator, Paradise Co., and partner Sega Sammy of Japan are also planning a multi-phased gaming resort pegged at 1.9 trillion won ($1.8 billion). The projects are slated to open in 2018 and 2017, respectively.
A consortium led by Genting Singapore also has approval for a mixed-use resort with a casino on Jeju Island, which is surging in popularity among Chinese tourists and already is home to eight casinos.
The ministry says it will provide support for these projects and others like them and expects they will deliver more than 8.7 trillion won in tourism income, plus jobs and other benefits.
