The Myth of the "Integrated Resort (original) (raw)

The myth of the "Integrated Resort" -false history, retrospective branding, fungible assets

Critical Gambling Studies, 2022

The expansion of the casino industry in Asia over the last two decades has purportedly given rise to a new development model known as the "Integrated Resort" (IR). Within state, professional and public discourses, the IR is often defined in three ways: 1. it evolved from large multi-attraction casino projects in Las Vegas; 2. it is distinguished by the fact that the casino occupies a small area of the property but makes a large contribution to its total revenue; and 3. the casino helps to make non-gaming attractions like museums financially viable. While not all factually inaccurate, I argue that these claims are strategic representations that legitimize and promote the IR in this part of the world. By triangulating different sets of discourses and participating in industry events like the Global Gaming Expo, I unravel the politics of these claims and trace their shifting effects as the IR is translated into various forms of regulatory controls and corporate practices. The emergence of the IR signals a historical moment in the normalization of commercial gambling in Asia, and shows how this transition can proceed through an architectural medium.

Casinos as Special Zones Speculative Development on the Nation's Edge

Development zones in Asian borderlands, 2021

This chapter offers a reflection on the speculative ways in which global casino hotels become new zones of development in many Asian destinations. As ultra-modern integrated resorts developed to boost tourism and foreign direct investment, these casino and entertainment enclaves carve out exceptional spaces in search of profit and legitimacy. Looking at casino establishments in across Asia’s special economic zones, this chapter examines the development of casino zones as a strategy for progress in places still marred by underdevelopment. New casino zones create novel forms of territorialisation and responsibilisation, enabling differentiated biopolitics of control.

Introduction: Integrated Mega-Casinos and Speculative Urbanism in Southeast Asia Author(s

2017

In the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, luxurious m casino resorts have become spectacles of economic growth across destinations in Asia. With its emphasis on large-scale integrated r (IR), the casino and leisure industry is a site of economic rejuve even as it offers spaces of moral corruption. Integrated mega-casi ambiguous projects of development, driving the speculative proce place-making for accumulation, social control, and global compe This editorial introduction focuses on three main themes. First, m projects show the historical and complicated relations between stat and the gambling economy. Second, Southeast Asia's new mega-cas emblematic of speculative urbanism and its experiments. Third, ca development consolidates the differentiated treatment of citizen and gives legitimacy to the biopolitical governance of citizen pr claims, and urban participation.

From Casino to Integrated Resort: Nationalist Modernity and the Art of Blending

This paper interrogates the relationships between architectural representation, spatial production and state power in the context of Singapore. I critically analyze and unpack the micro-politics of the planning and competition process around 2005 that transformed the Las Vegas casino-resort into the “Integrated Resort” at Singapore’s Marina Bay. My analysis reveals how the “Integrated Resort” – as discourse, image and building - was not merely discovered elsewhere and imported into Singapore. Rather, it had to be manufactured through a hidden process of negotiations, contestations and misrepresentations. I argue that this process should be seen as an “art of blending” - by hiding the casino and blending into the aesthetic order of Marina Bay, the architectural design of Marina Bay Sands was an attempt to resolve the crisis of representation produced by locating the controversial casino on this prominent site. Rather than interpreting the art of blending simply as a mystification of structural political economic forces, I show that this process was fraught with unlikely alliances and inexplicable contingencies such that it cannot be reduced to a single ideology or economic model. Architects, planners, bureaucrats and developers found themselves in shifting and differential power-relations mediated by the administrative procedures of the competition. Though the success of Marina Bay Sands rests on how well the crisis of representation was ultimately resolved, a constructivist critique provides a way to unravel what appears to be coherent representations of the state as a monolithic and univocal entity and its sponsored narratives of nationalist modernity.

Chapter 6 Gambling on the Border: Casinos, Tourism Development and the Prisoners ’ Dilemma

2015

The emergence of casino gambling on the economic development landscape has forced elected officials and practitioners to confront a host of public policy issues that were hitherto ignored. The first relates to gambling as a sustainable economic development strategy. For which kinds of community is it suited, if at all? The second relates to gambling as a tourism and leisure activity. Can it be categorized as such and under which circumstances? These are not simply questions of classification and definition. They depend heavily on the circumstances of the community in question, the sources of demand for gambling and the supply of casino facilities. Almost overnight, the fortunes of casinos can change and with them, the economic futures of those communities that gambled heavily on the casino; from being export-based 96 Chapter 6 economic development activities serving external demand in a regulated or monopolistic environment, they can turn into local service-based activities in a rut...

Current Issues in Tourism Reinventing Macau tourism: gambling on creativity

The paper identifies some major economic, social and environmental effects of gaming related tourism in Macau, the world’s largest gaming location in respect of casino turnover. The main types of effects of casino development are typically those associated with growth machine theory. The paper also identifies major threats to the sustainable development of Macau as a gaming/tourism destination, arising from a narrow industrial base, competing destinations, community alienation, and what is referred to as the ‘China factor’. The paper discusses the types of strategies that are required if Macau tourism is to counter these threats and develop successfully as a ‘World Centre of Tourism and Leisure’. It is argued that Macau can most effectively achieve this goal if it develops its tourism and gaming industries to be consistent with the key attributes of a creative city.