Thousands of people continue to arrive at the second day of the Global Gaming Expo 2018 at the Venetian Macau to learn more about the future of gaming and to take advantage of the networking innovation set within the space.
As more integrated resorts pop up all over Asia, Wednesday’s conference focused on the future of the IR sector with Macau as the center of discussion.
In his keynote address, Paul Martins Chan, director of Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DCIJ), shared the strategic vision of Macau leveraging tourism and gaming since 2011. Chan pointed out how the Macau government supported these two industries in order to push for the development of other industries within its territory. Fast forward to today, food and beverage, retail, live shows and entertainment industries have been growing and servicing the region’s main clientele—the Chinese premium mass market.
With Macau’s consistent success, Chan gave us a sneak peek of the future of IRs. “It should be developed (in) accordance with the five -year development plan of Macau,” Chain said, “Macau’s gaming industry will not pursue expansion in scale but focus on improving quality and utilize existing modern gaming tourism, building clusters to facilitate development of non-gaming elements.”
In the pursuance of non-gaming initiatives, establishing and sustaining customer relationship remains to be an integral goal for any operators. Jason Chu, chairman of Asia Pacific Customer Service Consortium, discussed how the world, not just the industry, has entered the “experience economy” where customers expect relevant, customized and personalized experience. He explained how vital it is to acknowledge and understand the new economy to better service and provide to the consumers of today.
According to Chu, “If you’re competing with your product alone, it is very easy to find replaceable products. And you can fight much cheaper one for the same exact functionality,” adding, “Individuals today, they’re willing to spend more on branded product, branded service and branded experience. So if your company is not moving into this new economy, of experience economy, they would completely miss their customer all together.”
The conference also covered the latest developments and trends in entertainment and technology such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), which can be leveraged in small spaces for extraordinary experience that will make customers get out of their homes and off their phones.
Speaking of development, the sports betting industry in the U.S. is entering a new era after the Supreme Court has ruled the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) unconstitutional. CalvinAyre.com caught up with industry expert Andrew Klebanov of Global Market Advisors at the G2E Asia. He shared his insights on what this means to the gambling industry and what will happen next.
