Alliance Global Group Inc. is bullish about the recovery of the Philippine gaming industry in 2023 and 2024 as China relaxes COVID restrictions.
AGI chief executive Kevin Tan told reporters late Tuesday the group was expecting a second wave of revenge spending and revenge travel from Chinese visitors once mobility restrictions were fully lifted.
“We are looking forward to the second wave of pent-up demand because China is now starting to open,” Tan said.
“When that happens, Philippines, with its very prime location, is in the right place to accept that second wave of revenge spending and revenge travel from Chinese tourists,” Tan said.
He said the group’s gross gaming revenues under Newport World Manila exceeded their pre-pandemic levels as players from Taiwan, South Korea and parts of Southeast Asia returned.
“But really China is market that we are after if you talk about hospitality and gaming. It is always the largest source of market for quite a number of ASEAN countries,” Tan said.
Analysts expect China to fully open up their economy in 2023 after starting to ease COVID curbs.
The casino industry was one of the hardest-hit sectors during the pandemic amid foreign travel restrictions. The industry started to slowly recover owing to domestic players.
Tan said as the local economy recovered, property unit Megaworld Corp. also planned to launch a number of hotels and townships across the country. Megaworld has 30 township projects.
He said liquor unit Emperador Inc. had no immediate plans to conduct fund-raising activity after completing its secondary listing on the Singapore Stock Exchange.
Tan said the market should improve first before Emperador would consider any equity raising activity.
“We have to gauge it for next year. It will depend on the market, and if there will be flows of capital in this region. For now, we have no capital-raising plans” Tan said.
Emperador is a leading high-growth international spirits company with a deep portfolio of globally-recognized, market-leading whisky and brandy brands distributed in more than 100 countries. Jenniffer B. Austria