Recognizing that the Covid-19 pandemic may have exercised an important impact on IR development, Yokohama Mayor Fumiko Hayashi has indicated that her municipal administration would seek a dialogue on this issue with interested IR operators.
“The revitalization of tourism and the MICE industry is indispensable for the long-term advance of Yokohama’s economy,” Hayashi declared, “but shouldn’t we also be examining the direction of these businesses in the post-coronavirus era?”
Last month, the Yokohama city government indefinitely postponed publication of its own IR implementation policy due to uncertainty over the national government’s policies and timelines.
At present, Yokohama, Osaka, Wakayama, and Nagasaki have declared interest in bidding for the three available IR licenses. Tokyo and Aichi are considered to be potential late entries to the race.
Futurist and entrepreneur Earle Hall, CEO of AXES reflects on the sixteen predictions made nearly 12 months ago during the AGB Webinar: Life After Covid-19, which looked at how business and personal and work-life would change as a result of the pandemic.
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.
