Macau's Asian-aimed casino is hoping to lure more than 20,000 visitors a day during the Lunar New Year holiday using some old fashioned folk law.
Last year more than 760,000 tourists visited Macau in the first week of the Lunar New Year as mainlanders flooded over the border to take advantage of the week long holiday.
With the increased competition in Macau, Galaxy Entertainment Group's Starworld casino and hotel is setting its sights on maintaining the venues 20,000 recorded guests a day over the period. The hotel claims to receive an average of 15,000 guests a day during non-holiday periods.
The hotel is already fully booked over the period, however it is planning to invest some HK$1 million on a display to attract walk-ins.
In order to give the potential gamers 'that lucky feeling' the casino and hotel lobby will be filled with windmills.
“Windmills are considered lucky in Chinese society, people believe if you spin them you will receive good luck,” said public relations manager, Vicky Wu.
Instructions, developed by the casinos Feng Shui consultants, will be provided so that each guest can spin the windmill an appropriate number of times, determined by their year of birth.
The hotel conducts quarterly research into the tastes and expectations of Chinese travellers as it seeks to differentiate itself from the city's other gaming concession holders.
“Some of the others just try to import things from Las Vegas, we are really trying to look at what the market wants and provide that,” said Ms Wu.
The research has told the company that their Chinese customers prefer to spend the majority of the money set aside for the visit in the casino. Therefore room rates and meals remain modestly priced.
“If a Chinese guests brings 5,000 patacas to Macau, they want to spend only, for example, 2,000 patacas on food and beverage and 3,000 in the casino,” said Ms Wu.
“We have designed the hotel around that idea, so the guests feel comfortable.”
More than half of the visitors to Macau during the last new year holiday were from the mainland, with 270,000 visitors coming from Hong Kong.
During last year's new year holiday the city's 12,809 hotel rooms were at 95 percent occupancy with 14 percent more guests spending a night in Macau than in 2006.
However competition has tightened with another three five star hotels opening. As at the end of October last year there were 15,740 rooms available in Macau.
In order to keep guests entertained, Starworld will also place a peach blossom tree in the lobby. The tree is intended to bring luck to guest's relationships.
“If someone walks around the tree they will either experience good luck in their relationship or if they don't have a relationship they will soon find the perfect partner,” said Ms Wu.
A “lucky” menu has also been designed for the holiday week. The popular Malaysian and Singaporean “raw fish” salad, Yu Sheng, or "lo hei" in Cantonese will be prepared in the Inagiku and Temptations restaurants. Good fortune will fall on those who toss the salad together, the restaurants chefs advise. “Higher the salad is tossed, the better your fortune will be,” said Ms Wu.
The good karma will then be combined with the appearance of celebrities that the hotel often enjoys introducing to guests.
Moses Chan, Jessica Hsuan, Ella Koon, Hot Cha, Michael Tse and Kwong Wai Hung from Hong Kong will all visit the hotel over the new year week.
The hand moulds made by previous guests including Olivia Newton John and Yao Ming will also finally be presented. |
