Gateway hotel resort gains popularity without Chinese visitors

By Lim Chang-won Posted : July 28, 2017, 15:32 Updated : July 28, 2017, 15:32

[Yonhap Photo]


Paradise City, a sumptuous casino and hotel complex targeting big-spending tourists from China and other countries, has become a new tourist destination crowded with local visitors who want high-class breaks.

The integrated resort which is still under construction near Incheon International Airport, the country's gateway to Yeongjong Island west of Seoul, has attracted 310,000 visitors since it opened its foreigner-only casino in April in a hotel complete with family entertainment facilities.
 

[Yonhap Photo]


For three months, almost 90 percent of hotel rooms have been booked, resort operators said, adding the resort has been more popular at home, attracting a large number of local visitors seeking comfortable and high-quality breaks with their kids or partners, reflecting a new pattern in consumption like the YOLO lifestyle.

YOLO, an acronym for "you only live once", is a motto that encourages people to live life as they want regardless of what others may think, as if there would not be another chance for it. The YOLO lifestyle is spreading fast among young generations.
 

[Yonhap Photo]


The resort would open a large shopping mall, a boutique hotel, a health spa and other attractions in the first half of next year in a joint project pushed by Paradise, a local casino operator, and Japanese gaming machine maker Sega Sammy.

It was part of South Korea's ambitious drive to transform the reclaimed island into its own version of Las Vegas, aimed at attracting more Chinese tourists. US casino operator Mohegan Sun and South Korean chemicals maker KCC Corp are building a casino and other facilities by 2019.

The drive, however, hit a snag after China imposed a travel ban in retaliation for the deployment of a US missile shield in South Korea that hurt relations between Seoul and Beijing.

 
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