One has set a date, Jan 20, the other, well, maybe April, as Sheldon Adelson puts it, who cares about days when billions are at stake? Sheldon Adelson, boss man of Marina Bay Sands, socks it to the media in Singapore on the opening date of the resort.
I suppose if you're investing billions of dollars in a project, you can get rather irritated with pesky journalists who seem to be fixated on what date you are opening.
Sheldon Adelson, the boss man of Venetian who saw 90% of his stock market value wiped out by the global financial crisis but still seems to have more than enough left to keep his gondolas afloat, made his impatience pretty evident at the media briefing he held in late December to announce the new opening date of his Marina Bay Sands project in Singapore.
Sands SkyPark set atop the three soaring hotel towers 200 metres in the skySetting a date of April 2010 (two months later than the February target announced in July), he said, "We're going to be around for decades. This is like a stock trader doing daily trades. We're not in the business to do daily stock trades.
"We're not in the business to be open for a week or two weeks. We're going to be around for decades, we want to do it right. And we don't want to open when things may not be right that may have been delayed beyond our control."
Well, one thing's for sure, Marina Bay Sands is making quite a statement in Singapore's skyline. Hate it or love it, there's no running away from those towering three towers and what looks like a giant plate sitting on top of them.
The more superstitious think the three towers look like giant, ancestral tablets which the Chinese use to worship the dead – not very auspicious. And indeed, things have not been smooth sailing for Marina Bay Sands.
Bad weather, the ban on sand, the economy and the frequent and sudden management changes have shadowed the development since its early days.
"Good," pronounced one eager punter who can't wait for the Marina Bay Sands casino to open. "If it's bad luck for them, it's good luck for us."
On Sentosa, the Malaysian-owned Resorts World at Sentosa will begin opening its doors in phases from January 20, much earlier than anticipated but not totally unexpected. Obviously, Chinese New Year on February 14 was a key incentive and the owners behind Genting Highlands must be anxious to get their operating licence before then.
It is no secret that one of the rules of the Singapore government is that most of the development must be open before the casino can be.
So on January 20, its four hotels - Crockfords Tower, Hotel Michael, Festive Hotel and Hard Rock Hotel Singapore - will be opened. Resorts World Sentosa's chief executive, Tan Hee Teck, said the phased schedule would allow the resort and its 10,000 employees to run in operations and deliver the expected guest experience.
On what he thought of Resorts World opening before him, Adelson said, "Let them open first and we'll see what mistakes they make and then we'll correct them, so we'll make fewer mistakes.
"You don't get an award, you don't get a gold star on your forehead for being the first one to open. We're going to open when it's right, when everything is perfect, when everything is right."
Yeoh Siew Hoon, one of Asia's most respected travel editors and commentators, writes a regular column on news, trends and issues in the hospitality industry for 4Hoteliers.com.
Siew Hoon, who has covered the tourism industry in Asia/Pacific for the past 20 years, runs SHY Ventures Pte Ltd. Her other writings can be found at www.thetransitcafe.com
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4Hoteliers was the "Official Daily News" of WIT09 - www.webintravel.com This article also appears in Asian Correspondent
