Sabrina Ho looks to Macau art fairs and auctions to diversify economy away from casinos
As pressure grows on Macau to find new sources of revenue, scion of casino dynasty imagines some other future for that other SAR
Sabrina Ho Chiu-yeng does what she can to help Macau diversify. The 26-year-old daughter of Stanley Ho Hung-sun could possibly be better known for gracing society and entertainment pages, but also in January she organised the very first Macau sales by China’s state-owned Poly Auction and also in November held her annual hotel art fair, having already launched an exhibition to market the job of young art graduates in September.
“Macau has been evolving,” she tells The Collector. “We don’t desire to rely just for the gaming industry. We’d like more families into the future to put holidays, we should boost our cultural and inventive industries.”
This is a politically correct view for that daughter of an casino magnate. Macau is in the cross hairs of Beijing’s fight against corruption and capital outflow. The central government started urging the location to relinquish its addiction to the gaming sector, the required taxes from where buy most public expenditures, back throughout the boom years, if the “build it and they’re going to come” mentality ruled the casino industry. Today, mainland policies to discourage high rollers combined with a slowing economy have increased pressure to find new revenues.
Fundamental change may be slow into the future. Five casinos have opened since 2012 and more take presctiption the way, including two from branches from 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 chiu yeng‘s half-sister Pansy Ho Chiu-king.
So are Sabrina’s cultural endeavours all just a little of soft advertising for that clan?
Well, China’s biggest ah is treating her seriously, and hopes her youthful energy and family connections may help it plunge into a new and wealthy market where no international house includes a presence. Inturn, Ho says, sherrrd like the auctions to help attract tourists and perhaps encourage the city’s 600,000 residents to develop much more of an interest in culture. Their bond, called Poly Auction Macau, is 51 percent owned by Poly and the rest by Ho’s company, Chiu Yeng Culture.
Ho spent my youth encompassed by art and also other collectables owned by her parents but she actually is a novice for the auctions business. After graduating by having an arts degree in the University of Hong Kong, in 2013, she handled the branding and marketing side from the family’s hotel and property businesses. “But I love art and i also asked Poly if I perform in your free time within their Hong Kong office, to learn about the auction world,” she says.
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