Sol Kerzner is a small man with big dreams.
By Yeoh Siew Hoon - SHY Ventures
Monday, 25th October 2004 |  |
You could hardly see him over the podium from which he was speaking but you could certainly feel his presence, and certainly his determination.
You would expect no less, after all, from the man described by former South African president, Nelson Mandela, as the “greatest entrepreneur in the tourism industry”.
Accepting the Innovator Award at the recent Hotel Investment Conference Asia/Pacific, Kerzer made it clear – through his slide show and words – that if anything is worth doing, it’s worth doing well, and big.
Consider his signature resorts which are more destinations than resorts – Sun City, South Africa; Atlantis, the Bahamas, and coming soon to Dubai; and his latest resort brand, The One and Only.
He built his reputation on Sun City, the most ambitious casino resort development in Africa, and if you’ve been there, you will understand that Kerzner is all about scale.
“Scale is terribly important because you have to give the reality of what you want to achieve,” he was quoted as saying. “For example in Sun City, we have over one million hand-planted trees and in Atlantis, we have the world’s largest man-made marine habitat and the largest casino entertainment centre in the Caribbean.
“You must have scale. I can’t imagine investing less than $1 billion in a project like this.”
By “this”, Kerzner was referring to his possible involvement in the much-talked-about casino resort development proposed for Singapore. While he was not giving anything away, it is known that his group has been involved in talks with the Singapore government.
In fact, when talk first surfaced about the project, Kerzner’s Atlantic, Bahamas, development had been mentioned as an example of the vision for Singapore.
In an interview in the Business Times, Kerzner said, “In principle, we would be very excited about being able to do something in Singapore if it is going to introduce gaming.”
He also sees the potential of the conventions market for Singapore. “I think with more competition opening up, developing something more than just a casino and more than just another convention centre will enable Singapore to compete more successfully in the future against other regional operations.”
Meanwhile, Atlantis keeps on growing. Kerzner is sinking another US$600 million into expanding the resort to almost 4,000 rooms, bringing the total investment in Paradise Island to close to US$2 billion.
Atlantis boasts 11 million gallons of fresh and salt water activities, more than 40 waterfalls and fountains, and the world’s largest man-made marine habitat, which holds more than 200 species of marine life including stingrays, sharks and piranha in huge open air habitats and underwater environments.
In developing, Kernzer says he merely builds on the strengths of a destination.
“The big picture for all this really came to me because of the wonderful sea that you have in the Bahamas, and because of the rich sea life. I felt that it would be very appropriate to bring it into the resort.”
In Dubai, Atlantis will be built on the crescent of the country’s offshore man-made luxury development, the Palm Islands. The US$1.1 billion project will consist of a hotel and a water theme park. It is expected to be finished in 2007. It won’t however have a casino.
As Kerzner showed slide after slide of his developments, I almost choked on my greens, while some developers in the audience were going green with envy at the big bucks Kerzner was throwing around.
And questions ran through my mind. How much water will he need, for example, to run his water theme park in Dubai? Where will he get the water from in a desert?
And if he came to Singapore, would we then have the world’s biggest food court in an underwater environment? After all, the first spa in an underwater environment has already been built in the Maldives – it opened just last week.
Chilli crabs under the sea, anyone?
 The SHY Report
A regular column on news, trends and issues in the hospitality industry by one of Asia’s most respected travel editors and commentators, Yeoh Siew Hoon.
Siew Hoon, who has covered the tourism industry in Asia/Pacific for the past 20 years, runs SHY Ventures Pte Ltd. Her company’s mission is “Content, Communication, Connection”. She is a writer, speaker, facilitator, trainer and events producer. She is also an author, having published “Around Asia In 1 Hr: Tales of Condoms, Chillies & Curries”. Her motto is ‘free to do, and be’.
Contacts: Tel: 65-63424934, Mobile: 65-96801460
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