Melo Villareal
The Philippines may not be considered as one of the top destinations in Asia mainly due to the fact that its too far from the mainland Southeast Asia where you can find some of Asia’s famous attractions like Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia and other countries but with the help of Social Media, International Travel Magazine write-ups and TV exposures, The Philippines is now fast becoming a popular Asian tourist destination.
Manila Bay Resorts Pool
More and more tourism investments are coming in and one of them is the construction of The Manila Bay Resorts – Asia’s largest entertainment complex that will partially open in 2015.
With a $2 billion price tag, The Manila Bay Resorts should be the biggest resort and casino facility in all of Asia. Located conveniently close to Metro Manila and regional airports, The Manila Bay Resorts will boast a number of hotels, some oriented towards the upper crust, like the 6-star hotel with the biggest casino in the Philippines, others offering a family-friendly atmosphere with 500 rooms. There will be at least one more hotel with 960 rooms, which means there will be three hotels in all, each a massive 15 storeys tall.
The Manila Bay Resorts
In addition to hotels and a crazy huge casino, The Manila Bay Resorts’ 44-hectare property will include a cinema complex, residential properties, spas, a concert hall, amusement center, two shopping malls, and dining options from quick and easy to fine dining with Michelin rated chefs from around the world.
Besides offering a uniquely grand variety of entertainment and vacation options, the goal is to become a major attraction due to the proximity of Manila to other major urban centers throughout Asia. They even plan to outperform Singapore and Macau, simply because they’re offering a resort within about 4 hours flight time of major Asian cities.
Even though the developers, already successful Tiger Resorts, believe and state that the project is going to be built on time, opening in 2015, there are more battles ahead. Kazuo Okada, gambling tycoon and owner of Universal Entertainment, which owns Tiger Resort Inc, is fighting allegations within the Philippines. This may or may not have repercussions for the project, but the company is clearly staying optimistic and opening expectations are high for 2015.
While some may say that a huge resort in Manila Bay is going to add more pressure to the environment and draw tourists away from the rest of the area, there’s a lot of good news in the economic department. First of all, about 15,000 Filipinos will need to be hired to staff the enormous complex, which will be a boon to the local economy. In addition, with their international focus and big budget for marketing, it’s likely that the Manila Bay Resort will simply bring even more tourists to the country who may not have considered it before.
With over 500 table games and an incredible 3000 slot machines, the casino itself will be the biggest in the Philippines. And Manila Bay Resorts will be the biggest entertainment complex in Asia.
