Singapore resort draws bids (The Orlando Sentinel, Fla.)

Universal Parks & Resorts, the Orlando-based theme-park unit of media titan NBC Universal, is competing against other companies worldwide to help launch a multibillion-dollar casino resort in Singapore.

Parks & Resorts Chairman Tom Williams confirmed this week that Universal has put in a bid for a project on the island of Sentosa. "It's five minutes from the mainland," said Williams, and would include hotels and a theme park that would be owned by the island-nation.

Williams said that, if it's successful in winning rights to at least part of the massive project, Universal would derive revenue from royalties on licensing rather than any ownership stake. The company already has a licensing arrangement with a theme park in Spain.

The company also owns 24 percent of a park in Japan and had worked for more than three years on a proposal for a tourist park in Shanghai, China, before that project was scuttled last year.

Williams said the Chinese government actually pulled the plug on the Shanghai project as part of a redirection of resources in the past year, as the country undergoes an unprecedented building boom. A shortage of steel, concrete and energy played a role in China's State Council decision to allow an approval deadline to lapse last July, Williams said.

Singapore, by contrast, recently dropped its ban on casinos in an effort to reinvigorate its tourism industry with a project that could draw from China, Malaysia and Indonesia. Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told Parliament on Monday that preliminary proposals for projects at two locations have already been received from 19 companies. The bidders include gambling giants Harrah's Entertainment, the Las Vegas Sands, Wynn Resorts, Australia-based Tabcorp Holdings, Hong-Kong-based Melco International, and Malaysia's Ghenting Bhd., which is teaming with its Star Cruises Ltd. Unit and Universal's theme-park unit. If Universal wins a bid, it would be a smart business move on its part to keep it as a licensing arrangement rather than an equity, or ownership, stake, which carries more risks, said Abe Pizam, dean of the Rosen College of Hospitality Management at the University of Central Florida. Pizam, one of the nation's top experts on theme parks and resorts, said he has traveled to Singapore dozens of times through the years and is familiar with the opportunities and challenges of the island city-state. "They have been losing their competitiveness to not only Hong Kong but Korea and Indonesia," Pizam said. "They are now looking for an infusion of tourists with a big attraction." Singapore decades ago was a leader in attracting tourists for tax-free shopping, Pizam said, and dabbled in other tourist ventures on a small scale. It has smaller parks and attractions, similar to the former Splendid China park near Kissimmee. But no major theme parks

In recent years, Singapore has been known more for its tightly controlled society, with its ban on chewing gum and regimented lifestyles. But the atmosphere has relaxed a bit recently, Pizam said.
"The younger generation wants to go in that direction," he said.

Singapore already has state-controlled lotteries, horse racing and soccer matches that generate gambling receipts. But casinos could draw public opposition in a nation where films are censored and drug dealers are executed.

Manufacturers have been leaving Singapore for lower-cost countries such as China and India, and Singapore's leaders now are looking to make up for that loss by tripling tourism revenue, to $18 billion, by 2015.

Source: By Jerry W. Jackson, The Orlando Sentinel, Fla.Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News