Bringing entertainment to the next level

MANILA, Philippines - A brand new community has risen, almost undetected and quietly, at Newport City in Pasay called Resorts Manila. It has solid funding, big plans, and more importantly goals that will benefit the country in the long run. This is the flagship entertainment project of a partnership between Star Cruises, Travellers International, and Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay, chairman and CEO of the Genting Group of Malaysia and the Philippines’ conglomerate Alliance Global Group, Inc. of Filipino billionaire Andrew Tan known primarily as the Megaworld boss.

We went to check out the bustling complex just opposite the Naia 3 Terminal and found the country’s largest casino on 30,000 square meters, reputedly the first ever to be licensed out by PAGCOR to a private entity. It will have the Newport mall with four high-end cinemas, a theater of 1,030 capacity, world famous brands, restaurants and cafés, and the Maxims and Marriott luxury hotels.

Many of the facilities are still to be completed, but already we are sufficiently impressed by what we’ve seen. Still, the best thing about Resorts Manila will have to be its VP for Entertainment Colin Kerr who is a workaholic, spends his day off with cellphone and computer on in case he is needed, a dedicated individual who loves his work and who infects everyone with his passion including this skeptical and jaded journalist.

Colin took us on a brief tour of the already open facilities on this Lifestyle Center housing Resorts World Manila, Maxims Hotel and the Newport Mall. We took a peek into the P3.8-B ($80.7-M) Maxims Hotel, the first luxury casino hotel in the Philippines with its 170 suites in four floors, three villas with their own pools, and a presidential suite. The corporate rate for a standard room starts at $350 but one can expect to be pampered in the seven-star butler hotel. You are assigned to your own butler who will be with you till you check out, explains Colin.

Another thing that makes it unique is the absence of a lobby. Each resident is taken straight to his suite where the paperwork is conducted. The only lobby it has is one outside where it’s single most amazing décor is the Maxims Tower glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly, from the collection of Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay worth half a million US dollars on loan to Resorts World Manila. For sheer luxury, nothing could beat this. Chihuly is known internationally for his achievements in glass. His large-scale sculptures are found in Venice, Jerusalem, Chicago and the Royal Botanic Gardens near London. The Maxims Tower is the only Chihuly artpiece in the Philippines.

The second floor has dining options. Right now, Mercado, Noodle Works, Passion, and Ginzadon are in operation encircling an Atrium with a glass skyline still under construction. We look at this gigantic project and wonder if it will make the July deadline. Yet outside, The Newport City Transport Terminal is already operational where clients from everywhere are serviced from the airport or whatever terminal round the clock.

Colin came to Manila in December of 2008 when much of the place was still on a piece of paper, and watched it rise before his eyes. It will be his first time to work in the Philippines, but working with Star Cruises for 10 years made a lot of Filipino friends, spent a month in the country helping a friend from the ship prepare for her wedding, and fell in love with the Philippines as so many foreigners we have met. He comes to visit as often as he can; has been to Bora, Tagaytay, Puerto Galera, Cebu and is happy Star Cruises management decided to move headquarters from KL to Manila. As we walk along the premises, have dinner at the main Casino and watch the shows, Colin would stop from time to time to greet people. Clearly he had the best PR or he was most loved. Our gut feel was that it is the latter.

Colin tells us he has been in entertainment his whole life reminiscing how in school he bagged the role of Louie in The King and I but just got braces and had to lipsynch the whistle, laughing at the memory.

This Scot from Kilmarnock had always liked to discover people and places. At 21, he left overseas to work in Italy. He has been at various jobs — in Mexico even as a Spanish singer, to Spain, to Egypt with the Nile River Cruises, to Greece, the Norwegian Cruise Lines, and in 1997 found a home with the Star Cruises. This doesn’t mean he would stop his itinerant way. Lately, he went to Jakarta to check out the rock bands.

At the time of our visit, entertainment was still limited to the ground casino with a stage in the round, and a lounge singer at the second floor VIP gaming room. Shows are from 12 noon to two in the morning. The acts are rotated from 20 to 30 minutes for diverse number of sets. We watched various artists including Canadian Idol and Wcopa winner Martha Joy, and the attractive singing quintet Eurasia composed of a German, British, Italian, Japanese, and Filipino from Viva Entertainment. This March, Eurasia is still on, and a whole lot of Filipino bands like Prelude, Sound Authority, In Session, Cocktail Trio, Judith Banal and her band. The foreign dance performers will have the very popular Power Duo acrobats from Belaruz of two females and two males in stunning acts combining strength and grace. Other foreign acts are the Essence Trio from Ukraine blending smooth, graceful classical dance techniques to complex acrobatic elements, and Yulia from Russia doing the hula hoop in an amazing routine.

The shows we watched were a good mix. Shows are changed every three months. Colin tells us that the audience for entertainment is always there; sometimes the wife watches while the husband plays in the Casino, other times it is the other way around. We found tables of friends who apparently didn’t come to game but only to watch the shows. Colin is proud of the fact that entertainers are predominantly Filipino (70 percent), with 30 percent foreign.

It is an official policy to use Filipino talent, not only in the entertainment sector but in other areas as well. The message from the big partners Genting and Star Cruises is to put Manila on the map, he says. “Manila is the place to be. Get rid of all the thoughts you had before.” Resorts World has opened a Training Academy where courses are taught by Filipino faculty in housekeeping, cuisine, waitering, F&B, dealers in the Casino. And all graduates are guaranteed a job after finishing the course.

Happily, the partnership between the new Resort World Complex and Star Cruises has benefited artists given contracts for three months each time. They may also be hired for shows on board the ship as Colin still retains his old job of entertainment head for the cruise company. So you wear two hats, we ask, amazed at the amount of work he has to do. “Two hats, one head,” he laughs.

But apparently, it is not only entertainment on the ships and casino that falls on his lap; it is anything and everything that can be described as entertainment. Entertainment in the two luxury hotels Maxims and Marriott falls under him; the outdoor lighting of the complex, the piped-in music in the corridors. Upcoming is the completion of the grand theater in the mall with shows for the entire family, for children, for special occasions. We ask him, what if you are transferred by the company somewhere else. “No no no,” he stresses. “I’ve already told them I want to stay here forever.”

(To contact Resorts World Manila, call 836-6333, website www.rwmanila.com)

 (E-mail me at [email protected].)