Sustainable development in a rapid developing Casino destination : The case of Macau

Sammanfattning: The casino industry has had a rapid development all over the world the last years, together with this a wide discussion concerning the sustainability of the destination has started. Has the casino industry developed goals concerning the social and economical sustainability? Macau is one of the world largest casino destinations and has been a gambling metropolis for over 140 years. In 2002 the government decided to deregulate the gaming industry that had been a monopoly since the 1930’s. This has started a massive development all over Macau. One of the greatest developments is the so called Cotai Strip. This is a plot of land that is modelled after the Las Vegas Strip and there they are developing large hotels and casinos and the aim is to become “Asia’s premier entertainment destination”. The plan is to provide 20 new casinos and over 20 000 hotel rooms. The purpose of this research is to do an inventory of factors influencing social and economic sustainability of Macau as a rapid developing gaming destination and to see if Macau is working towards a sustainable development. The conclusions are made that Macau has a great economic development mostly because of the tax contributions from the casino companies that reaches a sum of about 3,7 billion US-dollar every year. We can also see that the casino companies in Macau are trying to be social responsible companies as they work against problem gambling and donates money to those in need. But the research also shows that all these tax money that the government receives do not reach the inhabitants in the right amount. The research has concluded that this has caused problems such as increased criminality in the city, immigration of illegal workers and a great risk of a high increase in pathological gamblers. A wide dissatisfaction has started to spread among the inhabitants and many protests have taken place to open the eyes of the government. In recent time the government has understood that the development might have been too rapid and not sustainable, and because of this made some restrictions on further development. As the government has showed that they are aware of all the negative aspects and made some serious measures to address the development problems it might mean that Macau will not develop more serious struggles. But on the other hand it might have gone too far already, the future will tell.