Hello! My group is researching on the impact of integrated resorts in Singapore. As everyone knows, the tourism industry in Singapore has been expanding rapidly in the recent years. Hence, integrated resorts have also been built to enhance the remarkable achievement. The impact of the construction of integrated resorts will be further explored by us.
-- Kristin

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Hi, I have found some useful links. This is link is a QnA about the integrated resorts in Singapore and also about impact of having casinos in Singapore. By having integrated resorts and casinos in Singapore, it creates more jobs for the locals and also generate significant economic benefits to Singapore. Although the investment needed is alot, the feedback in the future is alot. For example, US$1.6 billion is spent on Bellagio in Las Vegas and US$2.4 billion will be spent to develop Wynn Las Vegas resort. They attracted 36 million visitors each year earning them alot much more money they have invested.

The second link is about the Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World at Sentosa that will start business in 2010. The website stated that with these 2 resorts they will be able to achieve their target which is attracting 17 million visitors and generate S$30 billion in tourism receipts by the year 2015. This website also mentioned about the jobs created by the time. There will be high demand in tourism sector for their facilities and services, from attractions to hospitality services such as hotels, F&B outlets or even coach services. With more tourist coming to Singapore in the future, Singapore will need more hotel rooms, air-capacity and manpower. There are 5 sites that were put up for tender. With these 5 sites, more than 1,800 new hotel rooms will be available. For the increament of air-capacity, Changi Airport will be opening terminal 3 which will boost our annual passenger handling capacity to 64 million.
-- Li Chao

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the last 15 years, Singapore had always suffered the image of dull city where people living there did not have any idea of how to enjoy life. This damaged Singapore’s reputation for it was a setback for encouraging tourism. Therefore Singapore government started to improve on entertainment in Singapore. Nowadays, we have place of interest and event like Esplanade, ION shopping mall, bar dance, soccer gambling, F1 racing, clubs which operates till morning, The Singapore Flyer and transformed Clark quay into a night life street with bars, dance clubs and places for supper. In order to make Singapore a country that will deeply impress the tourists and let them have plans to visit Singapore again, we need one more thing, which is Integrated Resort that consists of a casino.

The Integrated Resort and casino may not attract tourists for long term, but the combination of other activities that I had listed above would comply to increase of tourist attraction. This is important for Singapore as it will drive a huge sum of revenue from the increase of tourism. However, some may think that the casino will bring harm to Singapore as it encourages gambling. Casino is a legal activity that plenty of countries have and Singapore has set up rules that people who comply with the rules are able to enter the casino. Singapore casino will not allow the presence of yakuza, in other words gangster and loan shark activities to take place within the premise.

If Singapore has to remove the casino just because it consists of gambling, gambling activities such as lottery, TOTO, soccer bets should be remove too. Gambling is leisure if you are not endorses and get addicted into it. Singaporean has been educated about gambling addiction through school and media, and they are already educated to know their limit. Singapore government has put up a $100 entry fee for local to let them know the casino is a leisure activity for attracting tourists. If this does not help, even if we remove the casino, gamble addicts will still seek alternative ways to get into casinos like going to our neighboring country, Genting casino.

Two link for reference: Link1 Link2
-wee koon

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First of all, we have to understand the definition of integrated resort. It is by definition a mixture of resorts with hotels, restaurants, convention centre, theme park, shopping centre, casino etc. The two integrated resorts in Singapore are: Marina Bay Sand and Resorts World at Sentosa. Both of these are still currently under construction and will be due in year 2009. The Impacts that these IR will have on Singapore are by turning Singapore into a more attractive place offering a wide range of entertainment for both tourist and business visitors to visit which in return it’ll boost the tourism industry economy in Singapore and generate significant economic benefits for Singapore.

Statistics has shown that casino plays a critical role in increasing the revenue of an IR therefore by building a casino in Singapore, it’ll attract more tourists to visit Singapore. However apart from the benefits that by building a casino can have to our economy, casino can also affect the social value in Singapore. Having a casino would result in an increase of Singaporean being addicted to gambling which might cause the increase of crime rate and also the rate of bankruptcy in Singapore. In order to tackle this problem, Singapore government has adopted various solutions to aid the situation in due course. From imposing an entrance fee of $100 for local to enter the casino to setting up of helps lines for compulsive gambler to seek help to, these are the solution that the government have come up with.

--Junhao

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After spending sometime to research on the given topic, I have lately realised that Singapore is currently working very closely with two prominent companies - Las Vegas Sands and Genting International. Las Vegas Sands is now an assistance of Singapore's in developing and operating Marina Bay Integrated Resort. On the other hand, Genting International is being entrusted with the great task of taking Singapore tourism sector to the next level, by developing Sentosa Casino and Resort, which they believe that up to 15 million visitors will be attracted after the completion period of the development in year 2010.

Impact of the two IRs
Together with the two to-be-developed IRs, Singapore aim to achieve the target of attracting 17 million visitors and generate S$30 million in tourism receipts by the year 2015.

Going by the current growth rate, this represents a significant of 25 per cent increment over the 11 million arrivals of visitors projected for the year 2009. Besides, combining with the expected increase in the duration of stay from 3.4 days in 2006 to 3.6 days in 2010, this means that the number of visitors per day will increase drastically by 55 per cent - from about 90,000 in 2006, to nearly 140,000 in 2010.

In conclusion, these two IRs will in turn drive Singapore's economy and tourism recognition to a high magnitude in the next few years.

I have listed a few links here for you to view the details of what I have mentioned above:
- link 1
- link 2
- link 3

-- Kristin


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Although we all know that building integrated resort will help in attracting more tourists, there is also another problem we might face. From what Kristin has said about Singapore working very closely with 2 companies. One of it which is the Genting International. They are building a Casino resort with universal studio theme park at Sentosa. One of the positive impact is that the integrated resort will become Singapore's biggest tourism money spinner. There will be a boost in the tourism industry but how long will it last? 3 yrs? 8yrs? or forever? They will have to think of a way to retain the tourists throughout the years instead of just the first few years after the resort open. One of the solution they have thought of is to constantly upgrade the premises and maintain the standard and service of the resort.

Another positive impact that will be an increase employment and it was said to create an estimated 35,000 jobs opportunities. 10,000 jobs will be directly related to integrated resort.

Apart from the two positive impacts of having integrated resort, There is also negative impacts such as increasing number of gamblers who will visit the casino in the resort. Gambling may lead to social problems such as heavy debts and family issues. Family will have quarrels every now and then due to different gambling issues. Even though there is this rule about family with income lower than a certain amount will not be able to enter, those with higher income may get those problems too. What if they got addicted and lose all their money? Therefore, there is still the risk there.

Reference links : One , Two

- Mindy

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