Volume 2, No. 4. February 22, 2002
A song in his heart
To Darrell Metzger, his newest Pacific
Rim challenge is "kind of a dream job." One week into his role as CEO of Sentosa
Development Corporation overseeing the operations and improvements of Singapore's
island resort, Metzger was sifting through all the ways he could spend a total
of SGD$3 billion (US$1.6 billion) projected financing of a 10-year expansion
plan for the resort.
"This is a great one," he said of his new work. "We've got all the resources to do a good job here. Even though the economy is bad now, I look at that as a positive. You don't want to come in at the top of things, you want to come in at the bottom because even your mistakes look good."
Calling his Sentosa helm "a great one" says a lot for the man who was part of the management team that brought Tokyo's Disneyland on line in 1983, who helped organize the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles and the 1986 World Fair in Vancouver, and who served as CEO of Ocean Park in Hong Kong from 1991 to 1996. There he implemented a five-year plan there that boosted annual attendance from 2.4 million to 4 million.
Sentosa, who hired
Metzger after an international search, wants him to replicate his Ocean Park
success—only moreso. The 10-year master plan, which is expected to gain
government approval in the next few weeks, aims to boost annual visitation from
3.8 million last year to 8 million. "Quite simply we're playing with a lot more
money here," he said. There's
a lot more risk, the goals are more challenging, but we have the resources to
do it."
The strategy, however, is virtually the same. With attendance stalled the past
few years—"A polite word for it is that attendance on the island has stabilized,"
Metzger said—Sentosa will look to increase local traffic to the island
while building its resort offerings for international visitors. For the long
term Sentosa will develop its two beach areas as restaurant, retail and entertainment
centers. "There isn't much waterfront activity in Singapore, and this is a great
opportunity to create a local destination," Metzger said. The island also will
get a theme park, "something in the range of SGD$200 million (US$110 million),"
he said. "If we can't find anybody to do it for us, we'll do it ourselves."
Small attractions on the island that are not doing well now will be "fixed or shut down." Already Sentosa has closed its waterpark. "The problem we had with that and other smaller attractions was that operators were new to the business and didn't understand that you had to continuously invest and add new activities." To engender such devotion to reinvestment, Sentosa will require long-term leases of up to 30 years rather than the 10-year leases of the past. Those attractions that have performed well will get significant investment. The dolphin show in the lagoon, for example, may become a Discovery Cove-type immersive program. Sentosa will also get its own rapid transit system linked to Singapore's subway.
To build buzz for the short term Metzger is looking to special events: a fireworks festival, a music festival and upgrades to its Sandsation sand-sculpting festival with live shows based on the upcoming Scorpion King movie. A musical fountain show also will get an overhaul. "We want to start building momentum so that, first of all, residents start expecting to see new things every few months and the tourism bureau starts talking about us," he said. Then, in the coming years when the hotels, golf courses and other resort attractions come on line, Sentosa will be poised to attract tourists from North America and, particularly, Europe. "Instead of being a three-day stop-over in Singapore, our lure will be to stretch that out for a week." And keep them coming back for more.