James Packer plays his cards right at Commonwealth Business Forum

James Packer

Pitches  need for luxury gaming resorts such as his planned 
'Crown Sri Lanka' project  to woo high spending tourists

Australian businessman, James Douglas Packer last week indicated that catering to the needs of the rising middle class travelers from Asia, especially those from China and India will be vital to realize the true potential of the island’s tourism sector.

Hailing Sri Lanka a modern economy, growing strongly with a very professional approach to business and foreign investment, Packer, the son of the late media mogul, Kerry Packer, said the wealthy Chinese middle-class were no doubt attracted to luxury integrated resorts consisting of signature restaurants, quality entertainment, gaming, casinos and high-end retail meeting their travel needs under one roof.

Chairman of Crown Ltd James Packer (second from left) seems to be weighing on his prospects during a panel discussion which included Ministers Prof GL Peiris (third from left) and Nimal Siripala de Silva (extreme right). The session at the Commonwealth Business Forum was titled ‘Sri Lanka: 21st Century Business Destination’ chaired by BOI Chairman, Dr Lakshman Jayaweera (extreme left)

“I’ll now speak to you about one of the business opportunities I believe could turn Sri Lanka into a leading tourist mecca for the rising middle class of India, China and the rest of Asia. An opportunity to develop the country as a base and destination for mass, luxury and business tourism; something I am committed to through my company Crown Resorts and our plans to establish an integrated resort, right here in Colombo on the Beira Lake,” Packer said in a speech delivered on the second day of the Commonwealth Business Forum 2013.

Elaborating his claim, Packer noted that Mark Faber, a well-known US investment analyst, found that “80% of Chinese traveling outside the country for the first time head for a casino and 90% of Chinese who travel to the US visit Las Vegas”.

Packer said there are over 300 million middle class consumers in China today – equal to almost the entire population of the USA and by 2030, China is expected to have 1.4 billion middle class consumers whilst the size of the middle class in India currently stands at around 170 million; and is estimated to be growing by 40 to 50 million per annum over the near term.

“When it comes to tourism, China’s outbound travel market is one of the fastest growing in the world, as the middle class spend increasing amounts of money on their preferred leisure activity luxury travel,” he said adding that Chinese outbound travel had drastically increased from 2000 to 2011 by 566% and now estimated to reach a staggering 100 million people by 2015.

Meanwhile, the billionaire investor advocated that Singapore provides a case-study in how a country, which delivers iconic luxury hotel resorts with gaming as a component, can benefit immensely by attracting a much greater share of Chinese and Asian tourists.

He pointed out that ten years ago when the Singapore Government had concerns regarding their flat inbound tourist numbers with visitors not staying long enough, the Singapore authorities in 2004 had decided to build two of the world’s largest integrated resorts with an extremely diverse range of leisure and entertainment activities, including casinos.

“Resorts World Sentosa was the first of Singapore’s integrated resorts to open in January 2010. The second resort, Marina Bay Sands, opened in April 2010.”

“Just two years after the opening of these two integrated resorts, Singapore began reaping economic and employment benefits beyond anyone’s expectations,” he said adding that in 2010, the year the integrated resorts opened, Singapore’s GDP increased by 14.5%.

“That year, the two integrated resorts contributed approximately S$3.7 billion (A$2.9 billion) to Singapore’s GDP, making up approximately 1.7% of GDP,” he said.

He highlighted that Singapore has been able to successfully tap into the Chinese tourism market - receiving 1.5 million Chinese visitors in 2011, an increase of 34.7% on 2010 and a 68% increase on 2009 before the integrated resorts opened.

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(Pix by Chandana Wijesinghe)

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