Manila, Philippines – 6 July 2017 –
Resorts World Manila, the Philippine casino where 38 people died after an arson attack last month, aims to complete a new gaming zone this year as it seeks to win back customers and rebuild its brand, Bloomberg reported.
“We’re spending a lot of time enhancing the overall security of the place and learning about what had happened,” said Kingson Sian, 55, chief executive officer at Travellers International Hotel Group, which owns and operates the integrated casino resort. “We obviously have to gain back the trust of our guests and the public.”
Travellers, a venture of billionaires Andrew Tan from the Philippines and Lim Kok Thay of Malaysia, is facing its toughest challenge since opening the integrated gaming facility eight years ago. On June 2, a former patron burned gaming tables with fumes asphyxiating dozens before he killed himself. The company is under probe for the security breach that led to the attack and its gaming license was suspended for almost a month.
Closure of Resorts World Manila’s casino facility cost the company about 60 million pesos (US$1.2 million) a day in lost gaming revenue, Sian said, with customers to the complex, which has a shopping mall, cinemas and restaurants, dropping by as many as 10,000 a day to 20,000. Hotel occupancy plunged to 40 percent from 90 percent and is now at about 60 percent. When the casino reopened on June 29, traffic was half of that before the attack.