THE HUDDLE: SCOTT SIBELLA
What in the world We’re just a few months away from the most anticipated Las Vegas Strip opening in over a decade. On the site of the former Stardust, Resorts World Las Vegas, developed by Genting Group, is already making a massive statement in its scale, complexity and offerings despite convention saying it’s business suicide to go all in on a land-based complex of this ambition during a pandemic. But status quo be damned. In this episode of the GI Huddle, we catch up with Scott Sibella, president of Resorts World, who speaks about stepping up and standing firm in order to usher in a new era for the city.
What was the impetus to build a property of this scale in Las Vegas? Can you discuss the timing and the need for such a project? Genting is our parent company out of Malaysia and we've been in the hospitality business for over 50 years all over the world. So this is a big project for Las Vegas of course, and for us, but we've done big projects like this in other areas. And the goal was always to bring Genting to America, and to Las Vegas. That was the founder’s goal. The company has done some big projects in all different types of hospitality businesses, and we just thought it was a perfect time to bring a property at this level. It's been over a decade since Las Vegas has seen anything like this in the city, so it's going to be refreshing and something that's good for Genting, and also good for the city of Las Vegas. How did Genting get involved in the project and how has it strengthened its presence in the US? We've been in New York for many years. We have a casino there that we operate with the government of New York and about two years ago we built up a property in the Catskills, which was going well. Things were starting to take shape and then of course COVID hit. So we're getting through that. It was perfect timing for me because I've been in this industry for many years and was with MGM Resorts. An early retirement programme came out and it was good timing to leave there on good terms and join our chairman KT Lim at Genting. I’ve been here about almost two years now. It was good for me to get some insight about the city when it comes to running casino properties. So we made a few changes. He allowed me to do some things to make the property easier to flow through and 16 GAMINGAMERICA
with some design elements. So it didn't hold us up a lot but it did move us to the summer of 2021, and we're on schedule to open then. What was the impetus for the theme of Resorts World? How did that come to fruition? In the early days when Genting was looking at different ideas on the building and the architecture and design, there were a lot of things thrown out there. It was never an Asian theme; we’re not just after Asian customers. We would never do that. We're an Asian company, yes, and we know we're going to get a lot of Asain clientele, but it's a very traditional, modern-themed property. It has an Asian feel to it when it comes to maybe some of the art, restaurants and some of the color palettes, but there's no panda bears or Great Wall of China. Was the location always something strategically in mind? Why was that part of the Strip particularly attractive to you to settle there? We really like the north side of the Strip. It may not happen overnight, but we know things are going to start shifting this way. They are all luxury properties, so we love being associated with the Venetian, the Wynn, and you’ve got the Mall right there, and Sahara has done some great things to their property. So we know it's going to continue to come this way. We like that we have all this land, around 88 acres, and we're only building on two thirds of that. So we have plenty of opportunity for future development, which is part of our plan. We really want to be the first integrated property on the Strip that really is
