All bets are on Entertainment City
In a high stakes poker game there is a saying, “You need to know when to hold and when to fold.”
This technique can be best used to describe Efraim Genuino, the chairman and CEO of the state-owned Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation otherwise known by its acronym PAGCOR.
The 31-year-old company, under the steady leadership of Genuino is embarking on its most ambitious project ever, the creation of Entertainment City, a 15 billion dollar integrated entertainment complex that will rise on more than 120 hectares of reclaimed land on Manila Bay.
Even by international standards these kinds of projects seem ambitious, but when taken against an Asian perspective they are in line with what has been the norm for the past decade.
Just a quick glance at Macau’s mega gaming halls or Singapore’s “integrated resorts,” such as Sentosa Island or Marina Bay will quickly put Genuino’s Entertainment City into perspective. In fact according to Genuino, “Entertainment City is just the beginning, it will not stop here. We have just started Entertainment City, but now I’m thinking of the second phase, International City, a 700 to 800 hectare development to the south, and even after that we could develop some of the islands in the Philippines.”
If this high stakes game of poker proves a winner for Pagcor and Genuino, it will firmly establish tourism as a driver of growth for the Philippines’ economy.
According to Samie Lim, president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), “Pagcor will be a winner and will make so much from the project, it’s good for the country and the economic value that it will bring in.”
In 2008, visitor arrivals into the Philippines reached a record 3.1 million. Investing in tourism, according to Lim, will have a strong multiplier effect. For more than 25 years the Philippines was not able to attract more than two million tourists, while its neighbors Thailand and Malaysia were in double digit figures.
Ace Durano, Philippines’ young and dynamic Secretary of Tourism has set a target of 5 million tourist arrivals by 2010, and with projects like Entertainment City to entice, this figure should be attainable. In fact Genuino believes that the Philippines should aim for 10 million arrivals in five years!
Genuino concluded that “Long before Las Vegas entered Macau and long before Singapore began thinking about integrated resorts, the Philippines was the first to envision an entertainment and leisure complex on Manila Bay. This will be the country’s biggest tourism project ever, within three hours flying time from key Chinese cities,” providing a huge potential market for the Philippines.
