Across the Lotus Bridge from the Cotai Strip, where multibillion-dollar integrated resort casinos serve China's wealthy, lies the nearby city of Hengqin, where one of the six gaming corporations authorized to run casinos in Macau is making investments.
The Chinese Special Administrative Region's (SAR) longest-tenured casino concessionaire is SJM Resorts. Stanley Ho, the so-called "King of Gambling," established the business in 1963, and it controlled all gaming in the area for many years until Portugal returned the enclave to the People's Republic in 1999.
SJM said last December that it will be expanding its hotel operations into Hengqin.
SJM, a Hong Kong-based company, finished this week the purchase of a 12-story building at 59 Jilin Road for 724 million Chinese yuan renminbi (US$101 million). In order to create a three-star boutique hotel with no more than 250 beds, SJM intends to remodel floors 21 to 29 and 31 to 33.
Collaboration Across Boundaries
There is a limited amount of undeveloped land left in Macau and along the Cotai Strip that can be developed. Because of this, Hengqin has long been a preferred destination for nongaming development among the six casino licensees in the richest casino market in the world (casino gambling is limited within Macau's borders).
Despite having a much larger gaming industry than Las Vegas (Macau's gross gaming revenue in 2024 was $28.3 billion compared to $13.6 billion in Las Vegas), the Chinese city only has 43,200 hotel rooms, compared to 150,600 in Las Vegas.
Naturally, Las Vegas serves not just casino patrons but also important conventions, family holidays, and sports. Despite efforts to diversify, Macau remains primarily a gambling destination.
To entice more nongamblers to the SAR, the six Macau casino corporations agreed to invest over $16 billion in nongaming projects in 2022 in exchange for 10-year extensions of their gaming privileges. Casinos are now paying more attention to the mass and premium mass segments as a result of VIP junkets fleeing China's crackdown on their activities.
More hotel rooms are required to handle what the casinos anticipate would be an increase in overall tourist numbers.
"This project represents more than an expansion of our hotel portfolio. It reflects our strong alignment with national strategies to deepen integration between Hengqin and Macau, and our firm belief in the long-term growth potential of cross-border tourism and cooperation,” said Daisy Ho, chair of SJM and one of the late Stanley Ho’s 17 children.
“Through this investment, we are taking an active role in shaping the Greater Bay Area’s tourism future, anchored by Macau’s strength as a world center of tourism and leisure,” Ho continued.
The Anchor Property
Since the investment funds must be used at the company's casinos in Cotai or the Macau Peninsula, SJM Resorts' nongaming hotel project in Hengqin has nothing to do with its nongaming objective. According to SJM, the three-star hotel will provide both business and leisure guests an affordable choice.
"Situated at a high-traffic gateway immediately adjacent to the 24-hour operated Hengqin Port and directly served by both the Guangzhou–Zhuhai Intercity Railway and the Macao Light Rapid Transit Interchange Station, the site is exceptionally well-positioned to capture sustained demand from cross-border travelers. Backed by broader initiatives from the Central Government, including relaxed multiple-entry arrangements for mainland tour groups and residents of the Cooperation Zone, Hengqin-Macau cross-border traffic continues to register sustained growth, underpinned by structural policy tailwinds,” an SJM Resorts release said.
The Grand Lisboa Hotel downtown and SJM's Grand Lisboa Palace Resort in Cotai will be about ten and thirty minutes away by car, respectively.