Vietnam is one country that has benefited greatly from the collapse of Macau’s casino industry. High stake gamblers from Mainland China have shown a preference to travel to Vietnamese casinos where the gambling laws are more relaxed. The Vietnamese government has encouraged foreign investors to set up new casinos in the country as the gambling tax generated will be extremely beneficial to the nation.

The Banyan Tree Group had earlier proposed to construct an integrated entertainment project which would be situated north of Da Nang, a coastal city in central Vietnam. The project would be constructed on over 280 hectares of prime coastal real estate and would become a huge tourist destination boosting tourism in Vietnam.

The Vietnamese government had given the developers a deadline till the 6th of August to submit its request for concepts (RFC) outlining how it plans to use and develop the allotted land. However, the company has requested the Vietnamese government to relax the deadline as more time was required to prepare a detailed RFC.  The Vietnamese government considers this mega project to be an extremely important investment in the nation and hence was willing to give the Banyan Tree Group an extended deadline to submit its RFC. The new deadline has been extended till the 15th of September 2015.

The Banyan Tree Group had earlier retained Global Market Advisors LLC to carry out a detailed gaming market assessment to see how lucrative the Vietnamese market is. Global Market Advisors are specialists in providing data analysis on the casino and airline industry. In a statement, Andrew Klebanow, a partner at Global Market Advisors said “Vietnam is experiencing an exciting time in the gaming industry, with the potential loosening of the country’s gaming law expecting to attract more foreign investments.  We believe that this [RFC deadline] extension is necessary in order to allow parties time to fine-tune their concepts as well as encourage more investors to participate in this RFC process.”

The extended deadline will give investors and businesses additional time to send in their concepts for developing this world class integrated entertainment project. The integrated entertainment project will include a number of luxury facilities including a golf course designed by Nick Faldo, a 229-room Angsana resort, a 57-villa Banyan Tree resort, ten top restaurants and bars, 2 luxury spas and a state of the art conference center.