On the Cotai Strip they're placing their bets on red and black - odds and evens - luxury and budget. But can there be more than one winner? Yeoh Siew Hoon gives the wheel a spin. 

So what makes a Chinese gambler different from a Western gambler? Well according to Tan Sri Dato David Chiu, who should know his chips from his fish, if you give the latter US$10,000, he will probably spend half on his hotel accommodation and the other half at the tables.However, his Chinese counterpart would probably spend $8,500 at the tables and the rest on his hotel.

"In Las Vegas, the thinking is, if you want to attract high rollers, you build luxury hotels. But we are the hotel operator and we know the market," he said.

This is why the deputy chairman and chief operating officer of Far East Consortium would rather place his bet on mid-market hotels rather than the luxury end in the Cotai Strip/Venetian Macau development, of which he is a strategic partner with the Las Vegas Sands folks.

So Far East's plans for the Cotai Strip will include only one five star hotel, the InterContinental, while the rest will be three and four star – Dorsett, Cosmpolitan, Holiday Inn and a 4-star convention hotel.

Sharing his plans at the Asia Pacific Hotel Finance & Investment Summit 2006 held in Hong Kong recently, he related a trip he made to Las Vegas to see partner Sheldon Adelson's grand hotels in the city. "They showed me all the best hotels. I said, show me the 10 worst hotels. I saw two. You could see a fly pass by – they were empty."

Tan Sri Dato David is clearly less optimistic about Macau (picture) than many other folks, saying, "In the long run, Macau will boom but in the short to medium term, it will be last man standing.

"There are 10,000 rooms now and there will be another 20,000 rooms. How many cities have grown like that? We have to be careful."

Tan Sri Dato David's comments did come as a surprise to many in the audience especially on the back of news that for the first quarter of 2006, Macau posted record casino revenues which may have eclipsed even Las Vegas' bumper takings.

A news report said the 19 casinos in Macau chalked up 12.7 billion patacas (US$1.62 billion) in takings for the three months to March, an increase of 8% on the first three months of 2005.

The numbers led gaming analysts, citing under-reporting by Macau's casinos, to say that Macau's earnings had probably overtaken that of Las Vegas by $2 billion.

I am not sure but I think I detect a slight difference in philosophy between Far East and Sands on how the Cotai Strip should be developed.

Sands is clearly betting on the Strip to become THE place where convention goers stay and spend big money while Far East is thinking about the Chinese who will be spending out of their own pockets for everything, and will want to save more for the tables than a place to sleep.

One Macau observer told me, "Sands' thinking too is that those customers who want budget hotels can stay elsewhere on the peninsula or across the border in Zhuhai. Besides, if you were a Four Seasons or Shangri-La, would you want a Holiday Inn right next door?"

So which horse would you bet on?

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

Yeoh Siew Hoon's other writings can be found at www.thetransitcafe.com. Get your weekly cuppa of news, gossip, humour and opinion at Travel's Busiest Junction.