It took a while for Mohegan Gaming & Entertainment (MGE) to get the ball rolling on its South Korea integrated resort (IR), Inspire, but it now looks like a plan is in place and everything is moving forward. We now have a clear idea of when its Incheon IR will open, when it will be completed, and what it will have inside.
The Korea Times reports MGE’s resort, which will be the largest in the country when completed, is set to open its first phase in June 2022, with the fourth and final phase due to be completed by 2031.
“All of the major permits that are necessary to break ground, we received in May and we are under construction as we speak and we are looking forward to opening in early part of 2022,” Mario Kontomerkos, CEO of MGE said at press conference for Korean journalists at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut.
The first phase will include a five-star hotel, featuring 1,256 rooms, a sizeable 15,000-seat arena, convention halls, and of course, a foreigner-only casino. This phase will cost $1.29 billion.
South Korea’s gambling laws prohibit locals from entering most casinos, allowing them to only enter Kangwon Land, the government run casino in Gangwon province. As a result, Kontomerkos put a heavy emphasis on other amenities:
“Inspire will be unlike any other integrated resort in Asia and the reason for that in addition to the typical amenities that you will see in an integrated resort, we are also going to integrate seamlessly into this resort a 15,000-seat arena that will bring Western concert entertainment as well as Korean and other Asian concert entertainment. We will be bringing Digital Street, which will be a great showcase for local Korean food, retail and technological talent and finally we will have a theme park that will be unlike any other in Asia.”
The second stage of the IR will be a big tourist draw, as it will include a Paramount Pictures themed amusement park, with rides based on intellectual properties like Star Trek, Mission Impossible and Tomb Raider. It’s scheduled to open in 2025.
Just that construction is under way and the company has a clear finish line is great news. Previously, the company had to push back its ground breaking ceremony over fears that Chinese tourism would fall off.
