Venetian Macao

Everyone knows about Hong Kong, being the major international city that it is, but have you heard of Macau? Just a short thirty minute boat ride away, Macau is fast becoming the new Las Vegas, or that’s what U.S. investors like the Las Vegas Sands Corp. is betting on.

On Tuesday, the $2.4 billion Venetian Macao Resort opened it’s doors to give Sin City a run for its money. Let me see if I can describe the mass of this new beast.

With 3000 suites, 1.2 million square feet of convention space, 1.6 million square feet of retail, and 550,000 square feet of casino space, the Venetian Macao has more floor space than four Empire State Buildings. The hotel’s 3400 slot machines, 870 gambling tables and other games of chance sprawl across the casino more than three times the size of the largest casino in Las Vegas. All of this is encircled by 350 luxury shops spanning 1.6 million square feet of retail, more than any Hong Kong mall. A 15,000 seat arena for entertainment and sports events is nearly the size of Madison Square Garden.

And the Venetian Macao wouldn’t be a Venetian without three indoor canals with singing gondoliers; the Venetian Las Vegas has only one.

To mark the opening, Las Vegas Sands Chairman Sheldon Adelson and his wife smashed a bottle of champagne against the prow of a black gondola, steered by a gondolier through a faux-Venetian streetscape.

“I know what I’m doing. We’ve already done this in Vegas. There is no question about this,” he said in an interview before the opening.

Surrounded by the casino’s grand Italian architecture, with marble floors, high arched roofs, frescoes, fountains and gold statues, Adelson said: “All we’re doing is taking the fully matured, completely evolved capital of entertainment called Las Vegas, and picking it up and dropping it here.”

The Venetian Macao is offering an initial rate of $140 a night for a 650-square-foot suite, so you better book fast before prices skyrocket, and believe me they will!