Hong Kong property developer Tony Fung predicts that the Australian city of Cairns will be a gambling destination to rival Macau by 2019.
He has gained government backing for plans to build an A$8.15bn (US$7.6bn) casino resort on a former sugar cane farm north of the city. With targeted first-stage completion in late 2018 and 7,500 hotel rooms around an artificial lagoon, 18-hole golf course and water park, it’ll nearly triple the region’s hotel accommodation and be bigger than Singapore’s two casino resorts put together.
“We are extremely confident that Cairns can be a global destination,” Justin Fung, Tony’s son and chief executive officer of development company Aquis Resort at the Great Barrier Reef, said. “This is the closest western city to China.”
Fung’s quest faces competition across the region as investors locked out of Macau, which has licensed just six casino operators to tap its $45bn gambling market, plan new resorts from Sri Lanka to South Korea, the Philippines and Japan. With Chinese spending on overseas trips rising 26 per cent during 2013 to $12bn, the country is already the world’s largest source of outbound tourist revenue.
