[ON LOCATION] MARLENE GOLDMAN
Sands Resorts Macao serves as a gateway to discovering this Asian destination’s cultural riches and top-tier amenities. Located on the Cotai Strip, Sands Resorts Macao features 12,500 hotel rooms and suites, duty-free shopping with some 850 retailers, more than 150 dining options including Michelin-star restaurants, venues for star-power entertainment and a vast array of meeting, exhibition and conference facilities.
The integrated Sands resorts include The Venetian Macao; The Parisian Macao; The Plaza Macao—featuring Four Seasons Hotel Macao; and The Londoner Macao—incorporating The Londoner Hotel, Londoner Court, Conrad Macao, Sheraton Grand Macao (the world’s largest Sheraton) as well as The St. Regis Macao.
“We want to highlight our facilities, our services and our products, but even more so, we want to highlight Macao as a destination,” says Kris Kaminsky, Sr. VP, Hotel Operations at Sands China Ltd. While Macao’s reputation as a casino destination on par with Las Vegas has drawn gaming aficionados over the years, there is much more to explore, with its 450-plus-year-old east-meets-west past and current sophisticated MICE offerings. “If you’ve been here prior, you’re rediscovering, but even if you’ve only heard about Macao, you’re rediscovering it through a different lens.”
Our first stop on this FAM tour of Macao, which included media as well as 200 MICE professionals, was an opening night celebration at The Parisian Macao, held at the foot of a shimmering Eiffel Tower. The soiree offered the chance to mingle with Grant Chum, COO, Sands China Ltd., Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, Director of the Macao Government Tourism Office and Sam Lei, Acting President of the Macao Trade and Investment Promotion Institute while sampling from myriad food and cocktail stations. I also experienced a true bird’s-eye view of Macao from atop the Eiffel Tower on its Level 37 Observation Deck, overlooking Macao’s own copy of Big Ben and other glittering hotel and resort towers along the Cotai Strip.
Amenities at The Londoner include access to The Residence, a British-style exclusive club for hotel guests, and a nightly “Changing of the Guard” show in its Crystal Palace lobby atrium replete with drummers, trumpeters and a faux queen.
As part of the FAM, the group participated in two MICE-related panels as well as a teambuilding Chef’s Challenge, which entailed a cook-off that included some of Sands Resorts Macao’s chefs.
The challenge was just as entertaining to watch and set the stage for the evening’s Showcase Dinner at The Venetian Macao’s Colonnade. The theme of the decadent evening was Venetian Ball, with a 5-course Italian-inspired dinner and a dramatic catwalk fashion show from Macao fashion designer Nuno Lopes.
FAM participants had a chance to balance the evening’s indulgences the next morning with an early wellness session at immersive and interactive teamLab SuperNature Macao in The Venetian. I practiced Yogalates amid an enchanting floral backdrop while other participants joined for Qigong or a Guided Relaxation and Meditation in other teamLab mesmerizing art spaces.
Attendees also embarked on a variety of day tours, ranging from visits to heritage sites and culinary tours to walking the ledge of the Macau Tower more than 760 ft in the air at Skypark Macau Tower by AJ Hackett.
The curated itinerary gave attendees an immersive experience and showcased the Macao Government Tourism Office’s “tourism + conventions and exhibitions” cross-sector initiative. In accordance with the government policy to step up non-gaming offerings in the years ahead, six integrated resort and leisure enterprises, including The Venetian Macao Limited, have pledged to invest a total of $14.8 billion, over 90 percent of which will be put into exploring overseas customer markets and developing non-gaming projects, such as sports and wellness tourism. I skipped the death-defying tower plunge and chose a charcoal detox facial at Le SPA’tique at The Parisian for my morning experience to ease my way into my own discovery of Macao’s offerings.
In the afternoon our group toured the Macao Peninsula with a first stop at the A-Ma Temple, dedicated to the goddess of seafarers. The name “Macao” is believed to derive from the Chinese “A-Ma-Gau” meaning “Bay of A-Ma”, on which A-Ma Temple is located. We explored the complex including The Hall of Benevolence, which dates to 1488. There was also a stop at Rio Cinco de Octubro, named after the Portuguese Revolution of 5th of October 1910. Macao officially became the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China in 1999 when Portugal relinquished Macao to China. We had time to stop in the shops and restaurants selling famed egg tarts, handmade noodles and more.
We also hiked the Coloane Walking Trail, with views of the coast and former Portuguese Coloane Village, and explored the UNESCO-listed Historic Centre of Macao. The collection of more than 20 locations comprising the historic area include Guia Fortress with its famed lighthouse and city views and the Ruins of St. Paul, a 17th-century Catholic religious complex.
Macao is also a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy. We tasted its riches at a Sands Dine Around lunch, including the North Palace in The Londoner, home to an open kitchen where guests can watch chefs making noodles and dumplings from scratch. We also spent an evening in Taipa Village, an area filled with international cuisine, bars, shops and galleries.
Our final night’s London Jubilee gala dinner at The Londoner Arena showcased a 5-course dinner prepared by chefs from some of Sands Resorts Macao’s signature restaurants and a performance by Australian singer and former Australia Idol winner Casey Donovan who brought down the house.
en.sandsresortsmacao.com/sands-lifestyle/index.html; macaotourism.gov.mo/en