{"id":16072,"date":"2015-05-18T11:10:18","date_gmt":"2015-05-18T19:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=16072"},"modified":"2015-05-18T11:10:18","modified_gmt":"2015-05-18T19:10:18","slug":"lovemans-best-decision-new-face-at-bellagio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/lovemans-best-decision-new-face-at-bellagio\/","title":{"rendered":"Loveman’s best decision; New face at Bellagio"},"content":{"rendered":"

Caesars Entertainment<\/strong> CEO Gary Loveman<\/strong>‘s decision to pull out of the troubled Baha Mar<\/strong> metaresort may represent one of the best judgment calls he ever made. The $3 billion \"BahaMar_Vert_TM_RENDERED<\/a>Bahamas<\/strong> resort\u00a0has missed three deadlines<\/a> to open and has received the rather dubious governmental assurance that it’s “too big to fail.” (Rule of thumb: Those enterprises which are too big to fail generally do just that.) “It can\u2019t sit there idle it must eventually open,\u201d said a desperate minister of state. Whistling past the graveyard, Tourism Minister\u00a0Obie Wilchcombe<\/strong> said that when Baha Mar eventually opens, “the same enthusiasm will be there because of what it represents. It will require a tremendous amount of marketing, and a lot of events centred around the opening, but it will be outstanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Sam Nazarian<\/strong>‘s SLS<\/strong> component of Baha Mar<\/strong> managed to ruin the wedding plans of Houston<\/strong> developer Dr. Arpan Gupta<\/strong>, who finds himself stuck with a huge bill after yet \"Sam_Naz\"<\/a>another construction delay caused SLS to cancel bookings for him, his fiancee and 110 guests. Rather than offer a full refund, SLS wanted Gupta to accept (in addition to a small amount of cash) credits toward a future stay at Baha Mar. Since Gupta “would not go to the Bahamas again unless it was to see the ruins of Baha Mar,” which he likens to Chernobyl<\/strong>, SLS’ offer didn’t fly with him. The cancellation is particularly inscrutable because, according to Gupta’s account, he was assured on April 17 that the hotel would be ready for the wedding<\/a>, only to been told otherwise days later.\u00a0\u201cWhy couldn\u2019t SLS look out the window on April 15 and see the place was not going to open? I absolutely do not understand,” Gupta wonders. Caesars is well clear of this mess.<\/p>\n

* You and I would look at South Korea<\/strong>‘s Jeju Province<\/strong> and see eight casinos catering primarily to Chinese tourists, drawn by visa-free entry. Jeju’s government sees unrealized \"Koreantax revenues<\/a> and has commissioned a study “to devise methods to increase taxes by fully investigating the sales revenue of the gambling industry in the province,\u201d as well as to improve the flow-through of those taxes to communities within Jeju. At present, Jeju casinos pay a 20% rate. This news might not sit well with Genting Singapore<\/strong>, which has committed $1.8 billion to build a new, foreigners-only casino on Jeju. However, the company could look at Jeju’s market share (nearly half of all Korean gambling) and 58% visitation increase last year and decide that, hey, what’s a few more percentage points among friends?<\/p>\n

* With more players deciding to take a pass on Macao<\/strong>, entrepreneur Tony Fung<\/strong> isn’t missing a trick. His Casino Canberra<\/strong> is actively recruiting<\/a> Chinese- and Vietnamese-speaking individuals to be casino hosts and dealers.<\/p>\n

* S&G<\/em> congratulates new Bellagio<\/strong> General Manager Olivia Brown<\/strong>. Jamaican by birth and Canadian by upbringing, Brown was Ritz-Carlton<\/strong>‘s\u00a0Global General Manager of the Year in 2011. Her seven years at Ritz-Carlton were prefaced with 18 at InterContinental Hotels Group<\/strong>. By selecting someone from outside the casino industry, MGM Resorts International<\/strong> has taken another step in the gradual pivot away from gambling and toward a balanced resort product.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Caesars Entertainment CEO Gary Loveman‘s decision to pull out of the troubled Baha Mar metaresort may represent one of the best judgment calls he ever made. The $3 billion Bahamas resort\u00a0has missed three deadlines to open and has received the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[103,120,52,22,62,11,162,187,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16072"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16072"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16073,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16072\/revisions\/16073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}