TRAVEL
Both cities are likely to approve legislation allowing massive casino
developments that potentially could become the largest in the world
NYC, Miami Flirt with Gaming
Study: Incentive Travel Pushes
Non-Qualifiers to Try Harder
By Leo Jakobson
Both New York City and Miami are on the verge of approving casino-based evelopments that would dwarf anything else in the world. And both cities are
being courted by Malaysia-based Genting
Group, which built Singapore’s enormous
and successful Resorts World Sentosa.
Although casino gaming has yet to be
legalized in either city, the governors and
state leaders of both New York and Florida
strongly support legalization.
The Miami project (two renderings pictured) is further along, with the Genting
Group having already spent $500 million
on acquiring land around Biscayne Bay for
its proposed Resorts World Miami, which
would have four hotels and 5,200 guest
rooms, 50 bars and restaurants, a shopping
mall, and a convention center. The plan also
includes an 800,000-square-foot casino with
8,500 slot machines. Even without the casino
license, the Genting Group reportedly plans
to proceed on the project eventually.
A new convention center is a key to the
New York City project, which was unveiled
by Governor Andrew Cuomo’s State of the
State address in early January. “We have
long flirted and dallied with another potential economic engine—casino gaming—and
when it comes to gaming, we have been in
a state of denial,” Cuomo said in his speech.
“It’s time we confronted reality.”
Genting Group, which is
responsible for Singapore’s
Resorts World Sentosa, is
behind both cities’ projects.
According to the New York Daily News, the
state has signed a letter of agreement with
the Genting Group to build a $4 billion,
3.8-million-square-foot convention center,
as well as 3,000 hotel rooms and a casino,
at Aqueduct Racetrack in the borough of
Queens. The state has pledged land and a
transit system for the convention center. ■
Even partici- pants who do not qualify for
incentive travel find
the programs to be
fair and motivating,
according to new
research.
The Site International
Foundation and the
Incentive Travel Council
released the first of four
parts of its extensive
“Participant’s Viewpoint” study and found
high levels of interest
and engagement among
incentive travel program
participants who did not
make the cut.
Just 11 percent of
the non-qualifiers in the
study reported not striving for the travel award
due to lack of interest,
while 66 percent said
they were interested.
Only 11 percent felt
their employers treated
them unfairly, while 65
percent felt their programs were fair despite
not winning.
Nearly 80 percent of
previous qualifiers said
they were motivated
or extremely motivated
to qualify, while 69.9
percent of previous
non-qualifiers felt that
way going forward.
Las Vegas is one of three additional cities to get the
government’s TSA PreCheck express security checkpoint program. See
http://bit.ly/inc TSAPreCheck
