China: Casino project in offshore islands gets underway

Taiwan Tourism Bureau announced that it had authorized a consultant company, Macau based Ocean Tech Group (OT Group), to work on an international Integrated Resort (IR) including a casino in a survey this month. There will be more than 40 companies around the world surveyed in this project.

The Government is planning to setup IR with casinos in offshore islands to attract more tourism investment with hotels, shopping malls, theme parks, and Meeting Incentives Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE). Casinos will not be allowed in Taiwan's mainland, an officer of Council for Economic Planning & Development (CEPD) said, but casinos on offshore islands can still be an option.

Among the islands, Kinmen is expected to be the first priority in opening casinos. Thanks to the three mini links, Kinmen is deemed as the real thing to embrace the China market advantages. To increase more tourists to Kinmen, the government will allow Foreign Individual Travel (FIT) for Chinese visitors to Kinmen in April 2011.

The list of potential operators is confidential, said the OT Group. But it's believed that top 10 casino and resort operators from Las Vegas, Macau and Austria are interested. The OT Group will analyze more than 40 selected potential operators' questionnaires, including location, land size, investment amount, casino size, etc.

According to the Tourism Bureau's website, OT Group is in charge of the IR including a casino project. They will design the concept to include a theme park, hotel, expo, shopping mall and casino for the government. The OT Group will suggest criteria and requirements for Tourism Bureau to review the operators' proposals of IR investment.

According to an officer of Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC), the IR with casino licenses is unlimited.