Macau casino boom: Will the run last?

Labor shortages may prompt lifting of a ban on migrant workers.

from the April 25, 2007 edition

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Macau - Perched behind the front desk at the Pousada de Mong-Ha, a colonial-style hotel in Macau, Iris Lo looks every inch a professional hotelier in her dark bow tie, and gray tunic over a blue-striped blouse.

In a few months, that's what she could be. For now, Ms. Lo is a fourth-year student at Macau's elite Institute for Tourism Studies (ITS), where the hotel is located. Her outfit is the school's uniform. She's getting ready to graduate in a labor market so tight that most of her classmates have already lined up well-paid jobs in Macau's burgeoning hospitality sector.

Even by China's exhilarating standards, the gambling-driven economic boom in Macau, a tiny enclave ruled by Portugal for four centuries until its hand over in 1999, is something to behold. Last year gaming revenues at its 22 casinos rose to $7.2 billion, according to Macau government figures, up threefold in six years, outdistancing Las Vegas for the first time and lifting GDP growth to a red-hot 17 percent.

Gambling giants from Las Vegas are among those building new casinos and resorts in Macau, which received 22 million visitors last year. Among the newcomers is the 3,000-room Venetian Macau, a giant casino due to open this summer at a cost of $2.3 billion. International hotel chains are also opening their doors along a new casino strip built on reclaimed land, a 10-minute drive from Macau's international airport.

For young Macanese seeking a start in the hospitality industry, it should be the best of times. But Ms. Lo, a tourism-management major, isn't so sure. "I'm afraid this is only a bubble. You can easily find a job now, but what about in five years?" she asks.

50,000 croupiers wanted

By then, the burst of investment that greeted the licensing of new casinos in 2002 may face new challenges. As well as competition from Singapore and other Asian countries loosening rules on gambling, Macau is vulnerable to any political shift in Beijing, whose ban on betting elsewhere in China makes this enclave a gold mine. Over 60 percent of the visitors here are Chinese, and if they took their bets elsewhere, Macau's monoculture economy would be in trouble.

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