As pressure grows on Macau to locate new options for revenue, scion of casino dynasty imagines a different future for that other SAR
Sabrina Ho Chiu-yeng has been doing what she can to help Macau diversify. The 26-year-old daughter of Stanley Ho Hung-sun may be also known for gracing society and entertainment pages, but in January she organised the first Macau sales by China’s state-owned Poly Auction and then in November held her very own annual hotel art fair, having already launched an exhibition in promoting the task of young art graduates in September.
“Macau has been evolving,” she tells The Collector. “We don’t wish to rely just on the gaming industry. We wish more families ahead to put holidays, we want to boost our cultural and artistic industries.”
This can be a politically correct view for that daughter of your casino magnate. Macau influences cross hairs of Beijing’s fight against corruption and capital outflow. The central government started urging the town to relinquish its being hooked on the gaming sector, the taxes that spend on most public expenditures, back throughout the boom years, when the “build it and they will come” mentality ruled the casino industry. Today, mainland policies to discourage high rollers joined with a slowing economy have risen the stress to locate new revenues.
Fundamental change has been slow ahead. Five casinos have opened since 2012 and much more are on the way, including two from branches in the Ho empire – the Grand Lisboa Palace, led by Ho’s mother, Angela Leong On-kei (Stanley’s so-called “fourth wife”), and MGM Cotai, headed by Sabrina ho‘s half-sister Pansy Ho Chiu-king.
So are Sabrina’s cultural endeavours all slightly of soft pr for that clan?
Well, China’s biggest ah is treating her seriously, and hopes her youthful energy and family connections might help it enter a whole new and wealthy market where no international house carries a presence. Inturn, Ho says, sherrrd like the auctions to help attract tourists and possibly let the city’s 600,000 residents to develop much more of an interest in culture. The partnership, called Poly Auction Macau, is 51 percent of Poly and also the rest by Ho’s company, Chiu Yeng Culture.
Ho was raised flanked by art along with other collectables of her parents but she is fairly new for the auctions business. After graduating having an arts degree in the University of Hong Kong, in 2013, she worked on the branding and marketing side in the family’s hotel and property businesses. “But I prefer art and I asked Poly if I will work in your free time within their Hong Kong office, to understand the auction world,” she says.
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