South Korea’s casino industry is definitely growing, and the Incheon Free Economic Zone (IFEZ) is helping it become a major player in Asia. At G2E Asia @ The Philippines, CalvinAyre’s Stephanie Tower met up with Nicholas Kim, public officer for the region, who talked about the ways South Korea hopes to attract and grow integrated resorts.
Kim began by noting the many similarities between IFEZ and the Philippines equivalent. “Incheon Free Economic Zone has a lot of similarity with Manila’s Entertainment city,” he said. “Both of them are near international airports, and also, both authority tried to recruit multiple Integrated Resorts so that we can capture the international tourism industry.”
Continuing the comparison, Kim noted that IFEZ has looked to the Philippines for lessons, as Entertainment City has proven to be a very successful model, drawing in international attention. “I really congratulate you hosting the G2E event, because hosting G2E event has a lot of meaning,” he said. “That your Manila Entertainment City is grabbing international attention right now.”
Much like the Philippines, South Korea’s casino industry is up and coming, and Kim shared what they already have to offer. “Right now, we have three casino integrated resorts. It’s building up, one is already open,” he said. “So Paradise City has been open since 2017. Caesars Korea, and INSPIRE from Connecticut, U.S., is under construction. Also we have two more non-gaming resort. One is Solaire, from Philippines, and they are now at the designing step. And also we have Han Sang Dream Island invested by the Japanese company. So right now we have five resorts, one up and running. So we are a little bit behind, but slowly but surely, we are making it.”
At the time Tower spoke with Kim, the economic difficulties between the U.S. and China had been hurting the Asian casino industry for months. They could little predict what COVID-19 would do, but Kim still spoke about how he hopes for long term prosperity. “It’s affecting a lot, because even though we are running the foreign only casinos, Chinese mass and VIP probably takes up more than 85% of our demographic,” he said. “When Chinese government doesn’t allow Chinese mass to come to Korea, we can see the number directly how badly it influences it. However, we are so close neighbors, Japan, China, Korea, a couple of thousand years of relationship, so I think our dispute will definitely be resolved. And we see this year has been way better than last year, so I’m expecting we will get better in terms of recruiting the Chinese tourists.”
But in his final remarks, Kim gave some prescient remarks regarding how to perceive China’s influence on the world. “I think it will be more correct that Chinese affluence and China risk is always there, however we are experiencing building up how to minimize the effect of it,” he said.
