More expensive bets

Well, news that Genting International will incur a cost overrun of S$800m for its casino resort (Pix source: Genting International Proposal listed by Wikipedia) on Singapore's Sentosa Island due partly to higher construction expenses has not come as a surprise.

Genting International, a unit of the late Malaysian tycoon Lim Goh Tong's Genting Bhd, now expects to spend as much as S$6 billion to build the Sentosa casino, up 15 per cent from an earlier estimate of S$5.2 billion.

The Reuters report said the new budget for the casino, which includes a contingency provision of S$250 million, also covers the cost of six new attractions as well as improvements to transportation and access infrastructure.

Singapore is undergoing a construction boom due to the award of several large projects such as a new financial centre, the two casino resorts, several shopping malls and a slew of redevelopments of private apartments known as en-bloc deals in Singapore.

Similarly, Sophie's World reckons that cost overrun is expected for the other casino project -- Las Vegas Sands' 20.6-hectare piece of waterfront land at Marina Bay.

Apart from the tight construction market, Singapore is facing a higher import bill for sand and other building materials due to the ban on the sale of sand by neighbours Malaysia and Indonesia.

In addition, the construction job for the Marina Bay Sands project on the reclaimed land is likely to be way more complex than Genting's project. According to an engineer, a lot of big boulders were used in the reclamation of the land in the 1980s. This makes it more difficult to extricate the boulders for the foundation work. By the way, Sophie's World has never seen so many construction cranes on a single site!

So, will the two casino resort developers be able to complete the mammoth projects -- each resort will cost as much as the Circle Line subway system in Singapore -- by 2010 as planned?

Don't bet on it!

Mickey Mouse going to Malaysia?

This is an old story that just won't die, but not as old as Mickey Mouse (Image from Wikipedia)

According to Malaysian weekly The Edge, Walt Disney Co is looking to build a theme park on a 500-acre (202-hectare) site in southern Malaysia. The theme park will reportedly be sited at Bardar Nusajaya near the second link bridge in the Iskandar Development Region zone in Johor. The report said it would be ready in six years if a deal is signed.

The proposed Disneyland theme park and resort is slated to be bigger than Hong Kong Disneyland and about the size of Tokyo Disney Resort, the report said. Although the talks with Disney are progressing fast, discussions with other theme park operators, including Warner Bros Entertainment and MGM, have not ceased, the report said.

Will Mickey Mouse learn to speak Malay and appear at the theme park in Johor, which is next to Singapore?

Can Disney compete with the two integrated resorts and casinos that are coming up in Singapore? Las Vegas Sands and Genting International have gone full-steam ahead in building their resorts that are expected to be completed in 3-4 years. The casinos in Singapore are set to attract many gamblers and their families to Singapore. Casinos can help subsidise the rest of the resorts and theme park that are generally less profitable.

But any new theme park or resort in Malaysia won't have a casino. Unlike Singapore, Malaysia still has a ban on new casinos or gaming outlets since it granted the sole casino licence to the late Lim Goh Tong's Genting more than four decades ago.

Maybe there will still be room for Mickey Mouse in Malaysia as its concept is different from the two resorts in Singapore. But there are many problems at the Johor end.

Johor has the land and the resources to undercut Singapore but Malaysian planners simply lack the ability to execute their grand plans.

Johor has a long history of false starts in many overly ambitious projects -- Desaru, Waterfront City, a theme park by ex-UN Sec Gen, and even Universal Studios, which has since teamed up with Genting for the resort on Sentosa in Singapore.

The Iskandar Development Region is a grand plan but the government can't even resolve some basic problems in the state like proper city planning (Malaysia has since scrapped the proposed passport-free zones in Johor), crime, flooding and the failed attempt to jointly build a new bridge to replace the old causeway with Singapore.

So don't bet your last dollar that Mickey Mouse will finally learn to say "Selamat Datang ke Malaysia"*.

* Welcome to Malaysia in Malay

Sizzling Red Dot

A very useful map in The Straits Times of what's hot and what's not in the Singapore private residential property market.

Although only a small part of the island is currently in red to show the hot property interest, it won't take too long before the property fever spreads to the rest of the island.

The little red dot is definitely sizzling with the massive inflow of funds into property and private wealth sector. And the two upcoming integrated resorts and casinos -- Las Vegas Sands at Marina Bay and Genting-Universal at Sentosa -- will definitely add more sizzle to the island's already hot economy.

Singapore is definitely fast becoming Asia's Switzerland, or even more in the next five to ten years.

Genting Bags Sentosa Casino and Resort

(Picture Source: The Business Times, Singapore)

It didn't come as a surprise. Genting-Universal has bagged the integrated resort project with casino at Sentosa. Dad picked the IR winner again, as predicted in an earlier posting. Other postings on Sentosa IR race.

What came as a surprise was the revelation that Genting has a 30-year exclusivity arrangement with theme park giant Universal in Southeast Asia, which has a combined population size of 500 million people.

This means Universal cannot build another theme park in Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, or Malaysia, which has been courting Universal for some time, in the next three decades.

Big Singapore Tourism Bet

The Singapore tourism engine will be firing on all cylinders in the next few years as part of the plan to boost tourist arrivals to 17 million from 9 million in less than a decade. The 9-million mark was reached yesterday amidst much fanfare, according to the ST report today.


(Picture Source: The Straits Times, Singapore)

Dec 7, 2006 Tourism booms as arrivals hit nine million
By Krist Boo & Lim Wei Chean
BLEARY-EYED Russian tourist Elena Vladykina was taken aback by the orchid garlands and noisy drumming and dancing that greeted her on her 6am arrival at Changi Airport yesterday.

Then she realised she was being welcomed as Singapore's nine-millionth visitor -- a sweet ground-breaking number that caps a year of new records for Singapore's tourism industry. Last year, the island received 8.9 million visitors.

Yesterday, there was much to celebrate for the Singapore Tourism Board (STB), whose senior executives turned up at the airport to welcome Dr Vladykina, 29, after her 14-hour flight from Moscow. She was whisked off in a limousine with $35,000 worth of hotel, shopping and other vouchers.

It took Singapore just two years to leap from eight million to nine million visitors, said STB's assistant chief executive for leisure, Dr Chan Tat Hon.

The seven-millionth visitor was welcomed in 1995, but it took almost another 10 years before the eight-millionth showed up in 2004.

The tourism Singapore target now seems a tad conservative if the two integrated resorts and casinos -- Las Vegas Sands' Marina Bay and Sentosa -- can achieve their targets.

The next big news will be the decision on the winner of the Sentosa project -- widely expected to be made tomorrow -- to help achieve the Singapore tourism goal. All three bidders -- Genting-Universal, CapitaLand-Kerzner and Eighth Wonder -- have each promised to deliver more than 10 million extra visitors to Singapore.

And there is still last-minute lobbying, as seen in two letters published in ST today, by fans of the two front-runners for the Sentosa IR project -- Genting-Universal and CapitaLand-Kerzner.


A Genting win will benefit Singapore
I REFER to the articles, 'Harry's Island at cinemas worldwide?' (ST, Nov 30) and 'Free nightly show, says Eighth Wonder' (ST, Dec 1).

Having resided on both sides of the US continent for seven years, I wonder if Eighth Wonder or, for that matter, Kerzner-CapitaLand can attract the tourist numbers that Singapore wants.

Very often, visitors would want me to spend time with them at Disney or Universal Studios and, to a lesser extent, Six Flags or Sea World. Hardly anyone would care to visit Getty Center, Guggenheim, Atlantis or, for that matter, the Volcano at Las Vegas.

Most would want to have a fun day for themselves and their families at Disney and Universal Studios. Not many would want to get wet. Hardly anyone would want to gawk at architecture.

At Disney and Universal Studios, you can see their smiling faces, and feel their excitement. Universal Studios is a very recognisable name.

Genting's partner, Star Cruises, the third largest in the world, could use Singapore as a hub for their guests.

The other two contenders lack this and an attraction like Universal Studios. Can you imagine Universal Studios and the cruise business going to one of our immediate neighbours? Disney may or may not come in later.

If Genting wins, Singapore wins - if tourism is what Singapore values.

Lau Chee Kian

Go for the iconic, avoid the insipid
I REFER to the article, 'Sentosa IR race: Who will win?'' (The Sunday Times, Dec 3). I find the writer's take on which bidder will be selected to develop the Sentosa integrated resort very economical and safe.

No doubt, this approach has worked well in Singapore many times. It will give us a resort that is packed with features, economically optimised, comfortable to most, but insipid and hardly iconic.

The decision this time round is like no other. In our quest to be a truly global city and our search for the 'wow' factor, we can afford a little risk, trade a little function for aesthetics, economics for uniqueness, and familiarity for icons.

Hence, my choice would be Kerzner/CapitaLand's bid. Where else in Asia can one find another Frank Gehry work and a robotic wonderland?

This is not only 'magical' but will also appeal to a wider group of people and be more sustainable in the long run than a football school, a cooking school when we are hardly a culinary capital, a marine research institute far away from the ocean, maritime museum or another ultra-large hall.

To attract the tourist numbers the Singapore Tourism Board hopes to achieve, we need more than just the Sentosa IR.

We can have the 'usual' theme park at Marina East, collections of boutique hotels at the Southern Islands, celebrated chefs /restaurants doting the city and perhaps another Request for Proposal for the central promontory.

Let's see the Sentosa bid not as a single commercial decision, but with the perspective of recreating Singapore.

We need to seek for Sentosa what we could not have done in another site in Singapore, and bearing in mind that an offering like Frank Gehry's is available only this time round.

Ong Phui Luong