Q1. Discover how gaming entertainment converges with the hospitality industry in terms of its economical and social impact.
In terms of Economical impact:
Boost tourism with more diversity in entertainment
Tourist would never be satisfied with single form of entertainment. To attract more tourists and capture the largest profit from customer spending, many casinos and hotels combine as one entertainment group, providing a serious of gambling and hospitality services. Many tourists prefer to stay in Macau for over one night, as there are lots of hotels are nearby, providing body massage, dining, accommodation, sports and other leisure activities. For example, the City of Dreams, a hotel in Macau, holds the live show, The House of Dancing Water, that is to customers from time to time. As a result, many customers stay longer in hotels for the famous live show, generating extra profit. We can see that gaming entertainment converges the hospitality industry get a huge potential profit and even it can be a driving force to boost the economy.
Create revenue for local government
As the casino type of hospitality services has got popular and has created huge profit since decades ago, some governments incline to enlarge the sector of this type of entertainment industry. Take Macau as an example, since the early 1960s, over 50% of revenue of Macau has come from the gaming industry, which generates around 40% of the GDP. In 2002, the concession contracts with two Macau gaming companies, Wynn Resort Ltd. and the government signed Galaxy Casino. This opened the gambling market for competition and increased government tax revenue dramatically. It also appealed to more tourists to Macau. Nowadays, according to official statistics, gambling taxes form 70% of Macau's government income.
In terms of social impact:
As the living standard has increased with years, people demand more diversity in entertainment. People are willing to pay more to enjoy high quality of life. Hospitality associated services have prospered with the gambling activities like luxury accommodation and room services. Customers can go with their families, as there are various types of relaxation activities. Women can have spa services and do shopping in nearby malls. Children can play arcade games in adventure land. Men can solely enjoy the games in casinos. Hospitality casinos, combining multi-entertainment services in one, have been a major trend for past decade.E.g. Spa services in Grand Casino, Oklahoma, United States
Q2. Research more about the successful strategies of operating gaming entertainment.
1. Enhance Accessablity
By providing transportation support to customers, such as free suttle bus, customers are able to access to the casino directly from the airport or the ferry pier. As a result, tourists or customers are encouraged to visit the casino at least one with the free transportation. For instance, casino in Macau provides free shuttle services from pier to different casinos for visitors.
2. Increase the diversity of services
The gaming entertainment also attracts their customers by incresing the diversity of services. For instances, providing kids zones in casinos to attracts parents to visit casinos by helping them to look after their kids. "The House of Dancing Water" in Macau is a successful case to target a wide range of customers. Visitors may visit Macau for this significant performance and thus also enjoy the other gaming entertainment as their schedule of the travel too.
Another example is "Buffet of Buffet Pass" from the Total Rewards in Las Vegas. Customers are able to have entrance freely within 24 hours to enjoy all the buffet in 7 casinos under Total Rewards.
Q3. Find a topic that you’re interested in about gaming entertainment and do further research on it.
How Gambling industry impacts on the society and economy?
1. Social impacts
There are both positive and negative comments on how the gambling affects the community. For example, Giacopassi et al. 1999, 128 community leaders are interviewed in seven new casino jurisdictions in the United States and found that 59% of the respondents preferred casino establishments in their communities, 65% thought that casinos enhanced the quality of their lives, and 77% agreed that casinos led to positive impacts on the economy of their communities. Gonzales, Lyson and Mauer (2007) found relation between casino gambling with enhancement in the quality of life regarding the social and economic well being of population in Arizona and New Mexico.
On the contrary, although some researchers have found that the development of casinos has no direct associations with criminal activities, Janes and Collison, 2004), most studies have shown that casino gambling may have a relation with the these social problems: domestic violence, induce in divorce rate, bankruptcy, drug and alcohol abuse, risky or illegal sexual behavior especially prostitution.
2. Economical impacts
The casinos have generated huge tax revenues for the local government, which is an undeniable fact. (Anderson, 2005 and Gu Li, 2009) Kang et al. (2008) mentioned that casino gambling could facilitate local economy and create more opportunities to commercial activities. Also, tons of jobs opportunities associated with casino hospitality services are generated, bringing substantial benefits to the economy. (Long, 1996 and Pizam and Pokela, 1985). However, a study has (Mclain and Maheshwari 2006) compared the employment rate and personal incomes of residents within thirty casino communities in the United States, found that increases in job opportunities and personal revenue are not entirely correlated. Moreover, only the regions with high economic achievement like Las Vegas received substantial benefits from casino hospitality sector.
Despite direct financial benefits, the establishment of casinos could also improve opportunities relating with recreational, leisure, and entertainment events within these regions. Other forms of entertainment, like restaurants, bars, pubs, and retail outlets also have taken advantages of the nearby casino business. (Buultjens, 2006)
However, these related service industries could only be regarded as auxiliary industries compared to casino gambling industry. For example, Janes and Collison 2004 suggested that the portion of guest spending in casinos is significantly larger than that in other leisure services. Room et al. (1999) also indicated that other local businesses have diminished after the opening of casinos in the same region. In short, the prospering economy arising from the establishment of casino gambling activities could only benefit certain type of businesses and regions, but not every dimensions of the macro-economy in a nation.
Q4. Explore the up-to-date trends and news about development of gaming entertainment industry.
Firstly, with the development of technology, the online gambling has been becoming one of the most popular ways, especially in the sports area. People started to bet on games via Internet. They do not need to go out to buy, while they can buy it online. In this way, it makes the gambling easier.
Secondly, Asia-Pacific becomes the biggest regional market in the industry. According to the report of PWC, the revenue of the Asia-Pacific is much larger than USA.
Thirdly, the gaming entertainment industry is always influenced by the economic development and the regulation changes. The uncertainty of economic development will always make some challenges for the industry. We choose Macau as an example, the gross revenue has been decreased, the reason maybe the China President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign and the economic situation in recent years.
News:
The Macau government restrict on the use of China UniorPay debit cards at casinos since July 2014. This policy is for the government forbid tourists cashes out in the casino. This influenced the revenue of the casinos.The revenue of Macau has been decreased and many casinos closed. Because many VIP do not go to Macau to gamble for many reasons, the business of many casinos are worse than before. As a result, many companies started to reduce the staff trimmer.
Reflection:
We learnt gaming entertainment this lecture. We knew the simply history and developments of the gaming industry. And some interesting and basic concepts about gaming, such as the difference between gaming and gambling, the size and scope, the guests segments and the definitions of gaming.And the one of the keys is to understand casino’s operations and developments. We took Las Vegas as an example, learnt that there are three phases of the developments of a casino, serving local market only, competing in other locations and making an entertainment convergence.
Casino has special management strategies as well. Under slots managements, we need to understand cashless slots and pay attention to participation agreement. As for casino accounting, there are differences between table drop and slot drop. In addition, we learnt two payments methods and promotional strategies.
Finally, there is another interesting point about the layout of casino to attract customers and how to put slot machines and various games also deserve people to study with. Besides, the trends of gaming industry will decrease the importance of casino but gaming and hotel to make the industry more competitive.
References:
https://www.pwc.com/gr/en/publications/assets/global-gaming-outlook-2011-2015.pdfhttp://marketrealist.com/2015/03/macaus-gambling-revenue-halved-february-2015/
http://finance.sina.com.cn/stock/hkstock/hkstocknews/20140610/143119368211.shtml
http://news.qq.com/a/20151019/031918.htm
http://www.desiyatri.com/2012/06/free-local-transport-in-macau-using.html
https://www.caesars.com/las-vegas/buffet-of-buffets
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