What happens in Macau stays in Macau
Macau has become the Las Vegas of the Far East and is now even surpassing Sin City in gambling revenues, according to a recent report.
More than $25 billion of new casino and hotel complexes are planned for the Chinese territory over the next few years, The Australian newspaper reported. Already, Macau has 23 casinos, including new additions like the $1.5 billion Wynn Macau opened in September by Las Vegas casino operator Steve Wynn.
Las Vegas leisure consultancy Globalysis released a report last month that found Macau’s monthly gambling revenues now higher than those in Las Vegas. The company predicts Macau’s gambling revenues will reach $6.8 billion this year — topping the $6.6 billion in revenues expected to be generated in Las Vegas.
The ever-growing gambling industry in Macau is driven by the tourists who enter the territory from the Chinese mainland.
Las Vegas has more than 200 casinos — nearly 10 times the number in Macau — but Macau’s bigger revenues are a result of Chinese gamblers more interested in betting higher stakes at the gaming tables than in playing the slots more common in Las Vegas, according to the newspaper.
Kuwait’s development heats up
Recent investment activity in Kuwait is a sign that the emirate is finally catching up to its neighbors in the Gulf.
Development in Kuwait had been nonexistent in the last two decades because of a financial crash in the 1980s, the invasion by Iraq in 1990 and fears that an invasion might happen again. But with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Arab investment capital has been flowing into Kuwait, the International Herald Tribune reported.
Much of the development focuses on Kuwait City and its suburbs, and a shortage of developable space has pushed prices up. Most of the land is owned by the state and its giant petroleum corporations. The most desirable commercial land now trades for around $1,800 a square foot.
Global Research predicts almost 8 million square feet of commercial space will enter the Kuwait market in the next three years. That includes the country’s first round of giant malls, with a project called Avenues alone adding around 1.5 million square feet. New hotels opening include the revamped Messilah Beach, touted as the region’s largest, which was built in the 1970s and damaged by the Iraqis.
Given the amount of development, some have already voiced concerns about oversupply and a decrease in commercial rent levels.
Paris gets new priciest neighborhood
The seventh arrondissement of Paris, which stretches along the southern bank of the Seine and includes the Mus e d’Orsay and the Eiffel tower, has become the most expensive district in the city, according to a recent report by the Paris Notary Chamber. The neighborhood has displaced the sixth arrondissement around Saint-Germain-des-Pr s and the Luxembourg Gardens, which is now the second-priciest district.
Property in the Paris is still relatively inexpensive compared to New York, with a two-bedroom apartment in good shape in the central part of the city costing around $400,000 to $450,000. During the second quarter of 2006, the average apartment price increased by 12.5 percent compared to the same period in 2005, while sales volume shrank by 6.6 percent.
Investors check out Berlin’s higher-end hotels
Despite Berlin’s debt of billions of euros and one of the highest unemployment rates in Germany, the capital city has a booming tourism industry that is drawing the interest of the luxury segment.
The city now includes 14 hotels with a five-star rating, showing that hoteliers and investors are banking on the future despite room rates that on average are only 60 percent of those in London and Paris, the International Herald Tribune reported. The construction of a new airport south of the city, due to be completed in 2012, has helped fuel interest in the sector.
Many investors from England, Ireland and the United States are pumping capital into the hotel industry in Germany. Jones Lang LaSalle predicts that more than $1.28 billion will be invested in hotels in the country by 2007.
In 2005, a record $20.7 billion was invested in European hotel real estate, according to Jones Lang LaSalle, and another record is likely this year.
Among the recent transactions, the Hotel de Rome, part of a group of luxury hotels run by the British businessman Rocco Forte, opened last month in a former 19th-century bank building in the heart of Berlin. And U.S.-based Blackstone Group bought a portfolio of nine Accor Hotels in Germany for an undisclosed price.