Macau Hotels

MGM Mirage executives attributed a slower than usual Lunar New Year period in Las Vegas to new casinos in Macau and North East Asians deciding to stay closer to home during the holiday.The company opened its Macau casino, a joint venture with Pansy Ho, on December 18 last year.Company Chairman and CEO, Terry Lanni said during the fourth quarter earnings' call yesterday that his venues had seen a larger than usual number of North Asians during the Western New Year but less during the Lunar year change.“After 31 years in this business, and having been involved with Caesar's and here at MGM Mirage ... something very strange happened this year,” said Mr Lanni.“A significant amount of our North Asian customers from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and People's Republic of China came in over that Western New Year’s period, which is normally not the period of time in which they tend to visit.“This is anecdotal but, looking at our numbers and hearing other numbers in Macau, I think a number of people in that part of the world, North East Asia, if you will, ... tended to stay in the Macau area over the Chinese New Year’s period.”MGM Mirage reported a fourth quarter net income of US$872.2 million, more than three times the earnings of the same quarter of 2006. The increase was largely attributable to a more than US$1 billion gain from its joint venture development with Dubai World to build hotels, casinos and condominiums on the Las Vegas Strip. Revenue from its 17 US properties and investments was only up 4.5 percent.The company did not release any financial information from MGM Grand Macau's first two weeks of operations last year.However during the press conference executives said that the volume of high end play at the casino was more than anticipated, while mass market gaming was down.