Top honchos of gambling industry attend Nikkei Integrated Resort Forum

The imminent opening up of Japan’s Integrated Resorts (IR) industry seems to have acted huge boost for the Nikkei Integrated Resort Forum, which was held at Grand Hyatt Tokyo recently. A number of gambling industry heavy weights attended the event.

The event’s theme “Growth strategy borne by Japan’s IRs” was too inviting. There were only 600 seats, but 1400 people applied. Nikkei Inc., the organiser, had conducted a lottery to choose the 600 participants. Some of the big names in the industry who participated in the event were the following: Galaxy Entertainment Group Vice Chairman Francis Lui, Melco Resorts and Entertainment Chairman and CEO Lawrence Ho, Sega Sammy President and Group CEO Haruki Satomi as well as representatives from Wynn Resorts, MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment.

Also speaking were key members from Japan’s House of Representatives and officials from Wakayama Prefecture and Tomakomai City in Hokkaido plus a range of scholars and other industry experts.

Hiroyuki Hosoda, member of Japan’s House of Representatives, delivered the Keynote Speech.

Hosoda said: “There are high expectations for Japanese IRs to achieve the establishment of a tourist nation. I hope those in the private sector can draw on each other’s wisdom, cooperate and compete to create the best we have to offer and to work for post-Olympic economic growth.”

In a panel discussion titled “IR, the center of entertainment”, representatives of three overseas IR operators gave presentations with Jason Hyland of MGM Resorts Japan stressing that “entertainment is everything in an IR.”