Paradise City in Incheon has been hit by a Covid-19 case among a staff member, forcing the facility to shut down on September 1 for several days while emergency disinfection measures are carried out.
The infected worker was a chef at a Chinese restaurant within the facility, but did not have interactions with customers. The investigation by the authorities also found that there were no lapses in Paradise City’s infection protection measures.
All of the staff of the Chinese restaurant have been put in mandatory quarantine and about 350 other employees are being tested.
It is expected that Paradise City will be permitted to reopen on Thursday afternoon.
Nevertheless, the economic damage from the pandemic has already been impacting Paradise City gravely, seeing its hotel reservation rate fall from around 100 percent to about 15 percent. This episode may drive that figure even lower.
With continued and future disruptions on land-based casino revenues, industry executives are asking whether online casino platforms, which have seen rapid growth rates, can play a role in assisting stalled revenue lines and help them move beyond these difficult times.
Hong Kong-listed R&F Properties is seeking new financing and a casino operator partner for the Midan City development in Incheon, attempting to recover from Caesars Entertainment’s abandonment of the partnership.
In this April edition of Asia Gaming Briefings we take the pulse of how the North Asia jurisdictions of Japan, Korea and the Russian Far East have fared.
The world is bouncing back, or at least coming to grips with the fact that going forward not much will be the same as before. Commendably, this industry quickly understood the need to adapt to a new normal, and that the days of targeting the low hanging fruit of the VIP sector are gone.
Over the years, many of the answers have been remarkably prescient in their forecasts for the near-term direction of Asia’s gaming industry. However, we can safely say that no one came anywhere close to guessing what 2020 may have had in store.
