Las Vegas Sands announced on Friday that Hilton Worldwide’s Conrad and IHG’s Holiday Inn brands have joined the roster at the Sands Cotai Central mega-complex in Macau.
The property, which will include 6,000 rooms and suites and will also include the Sheraton and Sheraton Towers brands, is set to open in 2012 on the rapidly developing Cotai Strip as the hotel companies in Macau try to diversify the tourism draw from primarily gaming to MICE.
“When the doors to the rooms and suites at Cotai Central start swinging open early next spring, Macau’s metamorphosis from a gaming-centric regional location into an international leisure and business destination will be one step closer to completion,” said Sheldon Adelson, chairman of Las Vegas Sands.
Large-scale hospitality investment has poured into Macau since a monopoly on gaming licenses was lifted in 2002, taking advantage of the special administrative region’s status as the only place in the China where gambling is legal.