The Venetian Macao
The Venetian Macao
The Venetian Macao is a luxury hotel and casino resort in Macau owned by the American Las Vegas Sands company. The Venetian is a 39-story, casino hotel on the Cotai Strip in Macau. The 10,500,000-square-foot (980,000 m2) Venetian Macao is modeled on its sister casino resort The Venetian Las Vegas. The Venetian Macao is the largest casino in the world, the largest single structure hotel building in Asia, and also the seventh-largest building in the world by floor area.
The main hotel tower was finished in July 2007 and the resort officially opened on 28 August 2007. The resort has 3,000 suites, 1,200,000 sq ft (110,000 m2) of convention space, 1,600,000 sq ft (150,000 m2) of retail, 550,000 square feet (51,000 m2) of casino space – with 3,400 slot machines and 800 gambling tables and the 15,000-seat Cotai Arena for entertainment and sports events.
The lead architect for the Venetian Macao were Aedas and HKS, Inc. joint venture, who were responsible for the design, coordination and implementation of the project on site.
Casino
The casino measures 546,000 sq ft (50,700 m2). It is further divided into four themed gaming areas—namely, Golden Fish, Imperial House, Red Dragon and Phoenix. The casino consists of over 6,000 slot machines and 800 gambling tables.
The hotel offers a club called Paiza Club which caters to premium guests. The club comes with its own entrance, lobby, reception, and guest lifts to the rooms. The gaming area of the Paiza Club is divided into individual private gaming rooms each named for notable Asian cities and regions such as Yunnan, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. The guests of the club have exclusive access to the club dining outlet, the Paiza Club Dining & Lounge, which is open 24 hours a day.
Design
The hotel uses Venice, Italy, as its design inspiration and features architectural replicas of various Venetian landmarks.
Accommodation
The hotel tower offers 2,905 suites. The accommodation floors go from level 7 up to level 38. These floors are served by guest lifts.
Paiza suites are reserved for premium guests. The largest is the Presidente, a 12-bay suite with four bedrooms.
Entertainment
The Cotai Arena (formerly known as the Venetian Arena) is an indoor arena, opened in 2007 with a seating capacity of 15,000. It hosts sporting events such as basketball, tennis, and boxing, as well as concerts and international televised awards shows.
Zaia
Zaia, a 90-minute stage production by the Canadian entertainment company Cirque du Soleil, ran between 27 August 2008 and 19 February 2012 in a custom-built theater at the Venetian Macao. The show, directed by Neilson Vignola and Gilles Maheu, featured a cast of 75 circus artists. The show’s theme was a young girl’s perception of the stars and planets, space and infinity, populated by otherworldly creatures. The theater housing the performance seated 1,800 spectators at a time.
Controversies
On 12 November 2008, the gates were locked to the construction labour force from a variety of Asian countries as projects were suspended. Hsin Chong, the project manager for the Venetian, laid off approximately 400 staff. As many workers had been there for less than two years, no severance was due. The next day, Sands’ president for Asia announced that up to 11,000 workers would be losing their jobs as the company was halting building projects in Macao.
In 2010 the Chinese press reported that as part of a “sex-trade crackdown” authorities had found more than 100 prostitutes inside the casino.
In early 2011 the United States Department of Justice and the Securities Exchange Commission initiated an investigation into the Las Vegas Sands Corporation with respect to the compliance of its Macao properties with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
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