If you visited Macau eight years ago you would have come across an ex Portuguese colony as a peninsula and island of China that was a rundown province with a small city and surrounding swamp. The population of 500,000 on this 25 square kilometre territory were relying on mainland China and envious of the developments taking place 45 minutes away by ferry in Hong Kong.
If you returned to Macau today you’d discover the largest gambling floor in the world and a community whose casino income is larger than Las Vegas and Atlantic City’s income combined.
Macau must beat Dubai in the speed it has moved from an underdeveloped community to the Las Vegas of Asia and one of the most prestigious retail environments in the world.
How did a Swamp attract Gucci?
Gucci, for example have one of their icon stores situated on a swamp (although they may not realise it). But, how did this retail phenomena start?
One of the largest retail complexes is the Venetian. The story of the Venetian Resort is fascinating. It starts as you’d expect in Venice when Dr Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson were on honeymoon in 1997. They fell in love with the place, they also happened to own The Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. They decided they wanted to create their own Venice in that part of the world and set about building the Venetian Casino and Shopping Complex.
They assembled a team of expert historians and artists who spent two years researching and studying Venice. The result was the highly successful Casino/Hotel and shopping experience in Nevada.
In the early part of this century they saw the opportunities in Macau and found a Swamp, the Cotai Strip. They then started building the Venetian Macao Resort Hotel. But, this time twice the size of the one in Las Vegas.
Macao was selected because of the golden opportunities. The Adelson’s believed it could become an Asian hub, plus literally across the swamp were literally billions of Chinese within a three hour plane ride.
Asia’s First Fully Integrated Resort
On 28th August 2007 Asia’s first fully integrated resort was opened and the numbers are staggering. The building could house 90 Boeing 747 planes. It was the second largest building in the world when it was built (the largest being Boeing itself). The total floor space is 10.5 million square feet. Within this space you will find ornate architecture, gondola rides down canals and over 350 speciality retail stores. As you would expect, nearly every designer label retailer you can think of has a store in the complex.
The gondola ride alone is mind blowing. There is an outdoor lagoon that is the equivalent of 11 Olympic swimming pools and then there is the indoor canal system which is the equivalent of enough water to fill another 4 Olympic swimming pools.
The centre of the retail complex is St. Mark’s Square which is a copy of Piazza San Marco in Venice. Imagine the shops in historic looking buildings and the ceiling made to look like the sky complete with clouds.
Apart from the shopping experience there is a 1,000 seat international food court, which after twelve months is now not big enough and will need to be enlarged.
Add to this 1 million square feet exhibition space that will hold 5,000 exhibition booths and 5,000 people, plus a 1800 seater theatre, a 15,000 seat arena and 3,000 hotel bedrooms and 546,000 square feet casino which holds 6,000 slot machines and 800 table games and you have a facility most people don’t leave when they get to Macao.
Does it work? In the first eleven hours of opening more than 76,000 customers had entered the building and 114,000 pass through within a 24 hour period.
And the Retailing?
My personal interest was to look at the retailing, since this is the largest “experience” retail complex in the world.
Consumers are entertained by street artists who are from all over the world. Plus, if you are prepared to spend over US$4500.00 a day as a consumer, you can have, for free, an in-house companion shopper who will walk around with you. They will act as a friend and adviser.
The fashion industry is well represented in the complex. I would like to have seen more retailers who sold “toys for the boys” and more local retailers as well as the global giants. Having said that, I am not their target market.
On my walk around I saw very few westerners and a large proportion of the sales teams did not speak English, but they did not need to. This is a complex built to attract Asians.
But, as a retailer or if you are planning an offshore conference this is a place to put on the map. Flights are now direct to Macau, plus a ferry ride from Hong Kong International Airport is a nice interlude. A venue and country worth putting on your global retail tour.
John Stanley is an internationally recognised conference speaker and retail consultan. He has authored several successful marketing and retail books including the best seller Just About Everything a Retail Manager Needs to Know. John’s retail experience covers hands-on retailing in supermarkets, hardware stores, garden centres, farmers markets and drug stores. For more information on John Stanley and how he can help your business prosper and grow, visit his website www.johnstanley.cc
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