Macau 2009

I've traveled to Macau the past two years on behalf of my main client, CyberArts. There's a tradeshow at the Venetian Macau--the Asian iGaming Congress--that we participate in. Last year I took two days and explored Hong Kong, this year I had one day of touring in Macau. It takes a least 24 hours of travel each way [counting layovers, etc.]. A long damn trip, but I do catch up on reading.

Macau is in Southern China and is part of the Pearl River Delta. It's a peninsula approx 40 miles from Hong Kong. Settled in the 16th century by the Portuguese, it was strategically important and faced many attempts by the Dutch to capture it. Which means that for a tourist there are lots of cool forts to look at [more on that later]. Macau, like Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of China. Meaning, they are chinese but keep their local government.


Macau used to be three islands, but is now two. [The marked regions are Macau, the land mass directly to the left is mainland China.] Coloane and Taipai were joined by fill to form the Cotai Strip, where the huge, new hotels are going. [I wonder how well that will hold up to a direct hit from a monsoon.]

Although a World Heritage Site, Macau is known mainly for the gambling. Macau surpassed Las Vegas in gambling revenues in 2007 [of course, Lost Wages has diversified to become an entertainment destination, and gambling revenues are only about 50% of total revenues, but still]. Macau became so popular a gambling destination for the Chinese that the Chinese govt recently limited visits to Macau to once every three months. [There's a lot more to this story, but some other post, I think.]


[This photo is from Macau Tripping.]The Venetian Macau is currently the hugest of the huge casinos in Macau--it's the fourth largest structure in the world. It's an all suite hotel, the smallest suite is 750 sq feet. I have to say, the rooms are pretty nice.



But the view, not so much. The Cotai Strip is like Vegas. There's no there, there. In London [and Barcelona] the view from the hotel is of a real city with history and culture.


Another gi-normous hotel under construction.