The Venetian Macao, Asia's First Las Vegas-Style Integrated Mega-Resort, Opens
“In this day and age its commonplace to throw around phrases like historic, groundbreaking, and revolutionary,” said Sheldon G. Adelson, chairman and chief executive officer of Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) , the parent company of The Venetian Macao. “But it is no overstatement to say that the opening of The Venetian Macao represents a massive paradigm shift for Macao and the future of tourism development in Asia.”
The moment it opened, the US$2.4 billion Venetian Macao became the largest single structure hotel in Asia and the second largest building in the world. Like its sister-property in Las Vegas, The Venetian Macao is a renaissance Venice-themed property featuring stunning replicas of Venice landmarks such as St. Mark's Square, the Doge's Palace, Campanile Tower, and three indoor canals with gondolas and singing gondoliers. The hotel has 3,000 all-suite guest rooms and with one million square feet of retail space, which is more than any shopping mall in Hong Kong, The Venetian Macao now becomes a major destination for the region's top shoppers. The casino floor, at 550,000 square feet, is the largest in the world and is home to 870 table games and more than 3,400 slot machines.
The facility also features the 15,000-seat Venetian Arena, which will make its debut by holding the hotel's star-studded Grand Opening event later this evening. In the coming weeks, The Venetian Arena will play host to a pair of NBA exhibition games and a match-up of tennis greats Roger Federer and Pete Sampras. The arena's seating capacity and state-of-the-art equipment instantly make it the top entertainment facility in the region.
The Venetian Macao also has 1.2 million-square feet of meeting, convention and exhibition space, more than twice the amount of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. The facility features the largest pillar-less ballroom in Asia and has the catering facilities to provide a five-course banquet for 15,000 guests. Early next year, the 1,800 seat Venetian Theatre will open featuring an original production from world-renowned Cirque du Soleil.
“All of the amazing offerings inside The Venetian make it not only the first fully integrated resort in Macao, they make the building the first-of- its kind anywhere in Asia,” said William P. Weidner, president and chief operating officer of Las Vegas Sands. “The Venetian Macao is truly a destination within itself and its presence will help Macao realize its future as a multi-day stay leisure and business destination for millions of people across the region.”
Weidner said The Venetian Macao represents, in one location, all of the key elements — fine dining, upscale shopping, entertainment, all-suite rooms, meetings and conventions, expansive recreation amenities — that have helped make Las Vegas one of the world's top leisure and business destinations.
“It has taken 76 years and several different generations of transformation to build Las Vegas into a destination that now successfully attracts more than 40 million people annually,” said Weidner. “The majority of that success has happened over the past two decades, a time in which destination resort offerings saw their most substantial levels of innovation. The Venetian Macao represents the very best of that innovation, only now it is being applied in Asia for the very first time to create a multi-day stay destination for Macao.”
In addition to the excitement surrounding The Venetian Macao, the festivities also marks the opening of Las Vegas Sands' Cotai Strip(TM). The Cotai Strip is a collection of hotel properties to be run by some of the most prestigious names in the hotel industry, including Four Seasons, Sheraton, St. Regis, Shangri-La, Traders, Hilton, Conrad, Fairmont, and Raffles. Las Vegas Sands Corp. will construct and own each of the hotels, as well as operate the casinos and entertainment venues in each hotel. At completion, the Cotai Strip properties will combine to feature 20,000 guest rooms, more than 3 million square feet of retail space and nearly 30,000 seats of live entertainment offerings.