Ho Tram eyes locals license, major expansion

Along Vietnam’s coastline in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, the verdant hills of The Bluffs golf course rise and fall to form undulating shapes on either side of a road that leads into one of Vietnam’s newest and most spectacular casino resorts, The Grand on the Ho Tram Strip.

Just two years old and beset by problems prior to its launch, the Grand Ho Tram integrated casino resort is expanding fast and looking to be at the forefront  of the country’s industry.

“It’s the only integrated resort on a beach in Asia. There’s nowhere else I know that has a facility of this standard and standing on a beach location. So that makes it very attractive to us,” said the Grand Ho Tram President Shaun McCamley.

The integrated resort currently has a casino with 90 tables and 500 slots, a 541-room hotel, a variety of restaurants and an 18-hole golf course that opened in October last year - all just a short walk from the beach. But the project is only in its first phase of an ambitious development to turn the 2.2 km stretch into a fully-fledged resort destination.

The Ho Tram Strip’s masterplan includes another 559-room tower that will have condominiums available for purchase. Once it opens next year the total number of rooms at the Ho Tram Grand will rise to 1,100. There will also be a further four five-star resorts set to launch in the next five years, another of which will have a casino. Asian Coast Development Ltd., the parent company of the Ho Tram Project Company, estimates its total investment to be $4.2 billion.

“The idea is to drive volumes of resort-minded groups where each service can meet those various requirements,” said McCamley.

Amid such rapid expansion, the company is looking to become something of a pioneer in the industry by positioning itself to be one of the first casinos to be awarded a pilot license to open to Vietnamese locals if and when a much-anticipated bill on legalizing gambling for nationals is passed.

“Locals allowed to participate with gaming is very important and we are working very hard with the government to have the first pilot license with Vietnam. Rather than the money leaving the country and going to places like Cambodia it’ll stay here,” he said, citing Phnom Penh’s NagaWorld as a major competitor.

“If they do allow us the pilot license it opens up a host of opportunities. We can have a lot more entertainment and bring in superstars and host grand events. So it’s a huge benefit for Vietnam and tourism.”

But until that time comes, the resort, despite being unique to other casinos in the country, is aggressively looking to publicize its gaming and non-gaming facilities to capture a diverse market in particular the Viet Kieu – ethnic Vietnamese with foreign passports.

McCamley says the resort has stepped up efforts to tap into the more than 300,000 expats that live in HCMC and Viet Kieu. Last year, Vietnam recorded 7,874,312 tourist arrivals, an almost 3 percent increase from the prior year.

“We offer the biggest limits in Vietnam. If a player wants a decent bet he can come to Ho Tram. There is no other casino in Vietnam that offers the same level of presentation. But even though they may not have the same appearance and offer the same quality as we do, the mere fact that they offer gaming makes them competitors.”

Earlier this month the resort announced that it will host the new $1.5 million Asian Tour event later this year at its par-71 Bluffs golf course, as well as signing European golf Champion Robert Rock to be the golf course’s brand Ambassador. The resort is also hosting the Asian Poker Tour this month.

Though things appear to be going smoothly for the resort for now, it encountered a period of turmoil early on when MGM Resorts, the first management company, pulled out for reasons undisclosed in 2013 ahead of the launch.

“There was probably a month where everybody had to work out what they were going to do and they decided to self-manage and opened about a month-and-a-half to two months after that,” said McCamley,

“When you have a significant transition from a major management company making a very quick decision to withdraw it’s never easy but there was a lot of talented people here who remained and did a very good job,” he said, adding that logos and branding had to be redesigned in the wake of MGM leaving.

But McCamley says the company has put its past behind it and is moving at an exciting pace in line with the country’s growing tourism sector. Though it will be a challenge to bring such a new property with a high level of presentation to fulfill its potential, for McCamley, there lies an opportunity to experiment with what works and have fun in the process.

“I don’t mind taking a risky decision. We run with the flow. If we have to make changes we make changes. We are an evolving business and the formula that we use every day may not be the same in five years.”