Welcome to the Macau Meeting and Event Planning Guide, written with meeting professionals in mind. Set in the South China Sea, the former Portuguese colony of Macau—now officially known as the Macau Special Administrative Region (or SAR) of the People's Republic of China—has in the last decade been transformed into Asia's mega-playground, enjoying six times the gaming activity of Las Vegas. Demand to reach this pleasuredome is such that Macau currently holds the record for being the planet's busiest border crossing. Once a tiny peninsula, Macau has had to grow its landmass in order to keep up with all the development. Investment continues to be robust, and there are claims that it will have 50,000 guest rooms by 2020, if not sooner. In other words, it's excitement overdrive in the Far East.
Macau is within a two-hour drive of more than 200 million people. Mainland Chinese visitors without valid Macau-entry passport stickers will need a visa, as will U.S. and Canadian citizens who enter Macau from the Mainland. (Those who arrive in Macau directly or from Hong Kong do not require visas.) While regional airlift to Macau is available through Macau International Airport (opened in 1995), Hong Kong International has direct flights from North America. High-speed ferries ply the waters between Macau and Hong Kong, departing every 15 minutes and taking no more than one hour each way.
Gaming has changed the face of Macau in more ways than one. Of Macau's three islands—Macau Island, Taipa and Coloane—the latter two are in the process of becoming one, thanks to the Cotai Strip. A colossal landfill project that began in 2006, the Cotai Strip has essentially joined the two islands of Taipa and Coloane. Upon the landmass that resulted, the 3,000-suite Venetian, flagship property for the Las Vegas Sands Corporation and the world's sixth-largest building, debuted in 2007, an immense luxury resort complex that also features more than one million square feet of meeting space (including the Cotai Expo and the 15,000-seat Cotai Arena).
To give an idea of Sands' holdings in Macau, the company currently controls more than 85 percent of Macau's hotel rooms (the majority of which are in Cotai). Each night, Sands directly and through its partners puts out turndown chocolates in more than 9,000 rooms.
Chief among newest developments is Sands Cotai Central, a mega-resort complex comprising a Four Seasons, the world's largest Holiday Inn (1,224 rooms), the world's largest Conrad (636 rooms) and the world's largest Sheraton (4,067 rooms, 2,000 rooms to be under its Sheraton Towers brand and opening in 2013); as well as having 300,000 square feet of meeting space, 11 restaurants and 106,000 square feet of gaming. Next for the Sands Cotai Central will be a St. Regis hotel to open, probably in 2014, with 439 rooms.
Elsewhere on Cotai, Steve Wynn, of Las Vegas fame, has received permission and is building a $20-billion, 50-acre property that is expected to open in 2015 and contain four Chinese porcelain vases he paid almost $13 million for at auction in London. MGM Resorts is building a $2.5-billion casino-hotel that will span 18 acres and include a 1,600-room hotel and a casino with 2,500 slot machines and 500 gaming tables.
On Macau Island, the Wynn Macau—almost identical to its Las Vegas sibling, even with two distinct brands, Wynn (600 rooms) and, opened two years ago, Encore (414 suites) sits next to the Mandarin Oriental, which has 213 rooms and 6,360 square feet of meeting space; and the 600-room MGM Grand, which offers a 9,000-square-foot ballroom. Stanley Ho, the original Macau developer (who, until 2002, held a virtual monopoly on Macau gaming) is still present, his Grand Lisboa on Macau Island having 430 rooms, with a 218-carat diamond permanently on display in the public area.
