Brown: BSI will put Saipan on world casino map

From right, Best Sunshine International chief executive officer Mark Brown, chief services officer Tao Xing, and majority stockholder Xi Jiabo made a presentation last Monday to members of the House of Representatives at the House chamber in the Jesus P. Mafnas Memorial Building. (Jon Perez)

Best Sunshine International, Ltd. CEO Mark A. Brown said Saipan is creating quite a stir in the international casino community, with most of his colleagues in Las Vegas and Macau constantly asking him about the multi-billion dollar project of Hong Kong-based conglomerate Imperial Pacific International.

“We are the buzz. They’ve been asking me, ‘Saipan, where’s Saipan?’ It is near Guam, but when you get here and you look at the island, you’ll know and learn the history behind Saipan,” said Brown.

BSI, an IPI subsidiary, leased almost half of luxury products shop T Galleria to operate a live training facility. They would transfer the temporary casino to an adjacent site once Phase 1 of the Grand Mariana Casino Hotel and Resort opens early next year.

Brown said the rest of the casino world could see the first phase of their hotel casino on Garapan when they open in February. “They are already looking [forward] on Saipan. I can’t go to Macau or Las Vegas without everyone talking about Saipan. They would always ask me, ‘What is going on there?’”

“Of course, you’ve got the believers and the non-believers, on what this is. On what we’re doing now, I can’t wait for this beautiful six-star building to open up so just they could say, ‘okay, we believe it.’”

Aside from the gaming industry, which is in its infancy stage, Saipan’s proximity and its natural beauty are among its selling points, Brown said. “The island is close to China and it is visa-free for Chinese tourists.”

“So besides the tourism piece, beautiful hotels, scuba diving, restaurants, the boats, the sky, all these things, yes we also have gaming. So it is convenient to come here for these wealthy mainland Chinese guys.”

He said news of Saipan’s lone casino is spreading by word of mouth. “All the other gaming destinations in the world are surrounded by buildings and in the middle of the city. There’s no other place that has this, if there is anything that is compared to this, it is too far away.”

“You would think of the Bahamas. Now we’re taking business from Australia because it is a far ride. This is so convenient and beautiful. If you land at the airport, in less than an hour you are already in your hotel room. There’s no traffic, it’s like a 30-minute ride and you’re already checking in your hotel room.”

He said BSI is taking care of the VIPs and other high rollers so they would have a great and memorable experience visiting the islands. “They are loving our yachts, loving the villas, loving the fishing and catching the largest tuna, and barbecues on the beach, they love these things.”

“But now, because of gaming industry, they are also talking about the gaming piece. The mainland Chinese guys, they are talking about the yachts, they’ve been talking about us because of the two yachts that the company bought.”

BSI’s two 150-foot yachts offer a private 24-hour chef, a butler, and a boat captain that has a six-member crew. “You can’t duplicate that. You can’t get that in Macau or Singapore. So when we succeed, the islands also succeeds,” added Brown.