South Korea’s Paradise City integrated resort is set to unveil its second phase of development on September 21, owner Paradise Segasammy Co. said earlier today. The property is located in the city of Incheon, known to be one of the country’s main transportation hubs.

Its second phase, the opening of which will be celebrated next week, includes a new boutique hotel, a spa and wellness center, a retail arcade, and a number of new entertainment facilities that will complement the 330,000-square-meter integrated resort.

Paradise City was originally launched in April 2017. The property featured a hotel, South Korea’s largest foreigner-only casino, and a convention center. Located at a 15-minute walking distance from the Incheon International Airport, the resort drew 1.2 million visitors during its first year of operation. With the launch of its second phase, the property believes it will be able to attract nearly 5 million visitors a year and to generate sales of KRW500 billion a year by 2019.

The plan for the construction of the Paradise City integrated resort was originally introduced in 2011. Back then, local hospitality company Paradise Group announced that it has partnered Japanese gaming machine manufacturer Sega Sammy Holdings to jointly build a KRW1.5 trillion property that would feature casino gambling, hotels, food and beverage and multiple entertainment facilities.

Paradise City owners said at a press conference held earlier today that the new phase of the resort will focus on the provision of quality entertainment services. Among other things, the new additions to the property’s existing offering will feature a differentiated structure and will contain references to the booming Korean pop culture and other popular movements in a bid to attract customers from Paradise City’s both domestic market and international markets.

Similarly to most of its South Korean rivals, Paradise City has suffered a heavy blow from the chilling Sino-Korean relations over South Korea’s deployment THAAD missile system which China has billed a threat to its security.

Following last year’s deployment of the system, the number of Chinese tourists to Korea dropped significantly last year. As a result, the country recorded a third consecutive year of a drop in the number of visits to its foreigner-only casinos. The properties drew 2.22 million international visitors last year, down 6.2% year-on-year.

Last spring, Mainland China prohibited the sale of package tours to Korea, but partially lifted that ban later in 2017. According to official data, a total of 410,337 Chinese tourists visited South Korea in July, which reflected a 45.9% increase from the same month in 2017. However, the reported figure still falls short of the 917,519 Chinese tourists who visited the country in July 2016, ahead of the political row.

Paradise City officials said today that they do not expect that the number of Chinese visitors to grow quickly in the next few years and this is why the property will look to draw visitors from other countries and to ramp up its marketing efforts in a bid to attract more VIP customers.

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