In Macau, the Sands China Limited subsidiary of Las Vegas Sands Corporation has reportedly announced that it will be dropping the Holiday Inn brand from its Sands Cotai Central venue as part of the process to rebrand the giant integrated casino resort as The Londoner Macao.

Suite shakeup:

According to a report from GGRAsia, the Hong Kong-listed firm earlier revealed that it is to spend approximately $1.1 billion to rebrand the Cotai Strip venue as The Londoner Macao and will be moreover converting its existing 1,200-room Holiday Inn hotel into the 600-key all-suite Londoner Hotel.

Total transformation:

Sands China Limited reportedly began the rebranding process earlier this year by changing the name of the giant property’s St Regis Tower Suites to Londoner Tower Suites but explained that it has no plans to alter the layout of this hotel or its Conrad and Sheraton compatriots. The operator purportedly also told GGRAsia that the introduction of the 600 new suites will give it control over 95% of the facility’s offerings and allow The Londoner Macao to better exploit the ever-expanding premium-mass gambling sector.

Taking advantage:

Robert Goldstein, President and Chief Operating Officer for Las Vegas Sands Corporation, reportedly used a recent conference call regarding his firm’s first-quarter earnings to declare that the decision to transform Sands Cotai Central’s 1,200-room Holiday Inn hotel into an all-suite facility had been based on a similar shift undertaken at the nearby Parisian Macao. He purportedly additionally stated that the move to convert this property’s 600 rooms into 300 suites had ‘turned out to be a very good idea’.

Goldstein reportedly stated…

“The landscape in Macau has changed dramatically since 2014. This is a market driven by mass and premium mass. We have the scale and the quality of rooms and suites and retail and gaming and entertainment to excel in this environment.”

Grand plans:

Opened in 2012 at a cost of around $4 billion, Sands Cotai Central had originally offered some 6,000 hotel rooms alongside a 106,000 sq ft casino. But, the rebranding exercise, which is due to be finished by the end of this year, is set to see this room complement decrease although Sands China Limited earlier revealed that the process will involve the debut of some 1.7 million sq ft of additional space spread across the Macau venue’s hotel, meetings and exhibitions, food, retail and entertainment offerings.