NagaCorp operates the NagaWorld casino in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and has enjoyed enormous success over the past few years as it is the biggest casino in Cambodia and benefits from the exclusive license it has to operate in Phnom Penh. The company is currently developing Naga2 which is the second phase of the casino resort that is scheduled to open during the middle of 2017.
Naga2?includes the additional of a hotel with 1,100 rooms, restaurants and spas. Tim McNally, the chairman of Naga recently spoke at the MGS Gaming Summit and announced that the company plans to develop Naga3 which will be the third phase of the casino resort. While no official proposal has been submitted yet, the chairman confirmed that the company will go ahead with phase 3 to cater to the growing number of tourists that are coming to Cambodia.
In a statement, McNally outlined what Naga3 will bring to the casino resort by stating “It’ll be additional hotel facilities and may be a water park or a theme park because in the long run, Cambodia is a reasonable cost destination. It just can’t be gaming, or a normal integrated resort as you have to compete with others in the region, so our masterplan will include non-gaming attractions that will draw a large number of people from the surrounding region, particularly south east asia where there is an undersupply.”
NagaCorp has done well during the first nine months of this year. The group stated that its VIP gambling revenue during this period was at $6.6 billion, which was an increase of 11 percent; mass market table buy-ins brought in $456.5 million, an increase of 13 percent while electronic gaming machines generate an increase of around 15 percent. Cambodia has indicated that it plans to make changes to its gaming laws and taxes in the near future but McNally remains confident that none of these proposed changes would have any major surprises nor pose any threat to Cambodia’s casino industry.
McNally highlighted the fact that the tourism industry in Cambodia was growing at a rapid pace and it is estimated that 5 million tourists will visit Cambodia this year, out of which 800,000 will be from China. In 2015, a total of 4,775,231 visited Cambodia which was an increase of 6 percent when compared to 2014.
Around 80 million people from China travel internationally every year and this number is expected to go up to 200 million in the next few years. Casino operators in the Philippines, Cambodia, Nepal and Vladivostok, Russia are all competing to attract tourists from China as a number of these Chinese tourists like to spend their money at the casinos.