Executives from Las Vegas Sands Inc., owners of the Venetian resort, and Harrah's Entertainment Inc. were keynote speakers at the 10th annual version of ACE, which was staged in a convention hall near two sites where the government of Singapore has agreed to develop resorts that would include casinos.

More than a dozen casino companies are in the running to build on the two sites, and the government has indicated that it would evaluate proposals and make a decision by the end of the year.

William Weidner, president and chief operating officer of Las Vegas Sands, and Richard Mirman, senior vice president of business development for Harrah's, kicked off the event with presentations about their respective companies and hints about what could be on the horizon for Singapore.

While Las Vegas Sands and Harrah's held center stage for the convention's kickoff, other competitors for the right to build what is being called an "integrated tourism resort" were among the crowd of about 100 gaming industry representatives from throughout Asia.

Grant Bowie, Wynn Resorts Ltd.'s top man in Macau, was in the crowd as was a representative of MGM Mirage, John-Martin Meyer, who made a presentation on slot machines later in the show.

The Las Vegas interests aren't the only ones in the running -- representatives of Stanley Ho's Sociedade de Jogos de Macau, Galaxy Casino S.A. of Macau, Sol Kerzner's Sun International of South Africa and Australian gaming companies Crowne and Tabcorp were also mixing with the crowd.

L.C. Koo, head of the performance improvement department of Ho's Macau empire, and Ciaran Carruthers, general manager of Galaxy Casino in Macau, compared and contrasted the Macau and Singapore markets.

While some in Macau see the emergence of Singapore as a potential threat to their interests, Carruthers said he expects the emergence of Singapore to play out in the same way that tribal casinos affected Las Vegas -- as a spur to increase the global gaming market and not as a growth impediment.

Weidner told ACE delegates that he expects Las Vegas Sands' project in Singapore, if approved, would be different than the company's projects in Las Vegas and Macau.

While Las Vegas Sands is targeting having a total of 7,000 all-suite rooms and a convention center that would rival Chicago's McCormick Center in size at the Las Vegas Venetian site where the Palazzo project is under way, Weidner said the Singapore development would only have about 800 rooms initially and the purpose of the resort would be to "energize and synergize" the tourism market of the city.

"Singapore has a good base infrastructure and our idea is to take what's here, repackage it and try to drive more visitation to drive more occupancy and ADR (average daily room rate)," Weidner said. "We call it energizing and synergizing."

Weidner showed an old design showing computer-generated images of what could be in Singapore. He said while he wasn't showing any company secrets, the concept in Singapore would remain the same -- an 832-room hotel for business and leisure travelers, a 1.2 million-square-foot conference center, a 1,700-seat entertainment venue, an arena with between 9,000 and 11,000 seats, an arts and cultural attraction with botanical gardens and themed shopping.

He said the master plan in Singapore includes a possible expansion of two 800-room towers.

Weidner said his company hopes to synergize the market and help deliver more room nights for the city and that much of the exhibition space the company would add would be carpeted for conferences and not exhibition halls, since the city already has plenty of that.

The Sands executive also said there are about 3.76 billion people within a five-hour flight of Singapore, 6.2 million people within 100 miles and that the Singapore infrastructure already includes 39,000 hotel rooms that have occupancy rates of about 80 percent and an ADR of about $65.

That's a dramatic contrast with Macau.

He said he expects Macau to become the world's largest gaming market in a few years and his company is contributing to that effort with the existing Sands Macau casino that opened last year and the development of a Venetian clone on the Cotai Strip, a piece of reclaimed land near the existing Macau casino center.

The number of tourists that visited Macau was up 40 percent from 2003 to 2004, he said, and this year over last year, the total already is up 22 percent.

"Since the opening of China, things have changed dramatically," Weidner said. "Given the growth of the Chinese economy overall, there is just a huge opportunity for Macau to develop into something much, much greater than Las Vegas."

Macau is primarily a day-trip market. Last year, it got about 17 million visitors, but the length of stay was only 1.1 days per trip.

"But the macro picture of Macau is very encouraging," he said.

Of the 9,000 hotel rooms in Macau, only about 1,500 are in branded properties, with occupancy rates in the 70 percent range and ADRs of about $61.

Las Vegas Sands quickly jumped into the mass day-trip market with a casino "as close to the ferry terminal as we could build it," Weidner said.

The Sands Macau casino is one of the first things visitors see when arriving at the ferry terminal. The 1.1 million-square-foot existing property has 370 table games and about 300 slot machines. But the big project is on the Cotai Strip on what once was a river delta on the island of Taipa, connected by bridge to Macau.

That's where Las Vegas Sands is building the Venetian Macau, with 3,000 suites, 1.2 million square feet of meeting and convention space, 850,000 square feet of shopping space, a 2,000-seat showroom, a 15,000-seat arena for world-class entertainment, 22 restaurants, a 66,000-square-foot spa and wellness center and an outdoor recreation area with waterfalls, wave pools and a lazy river.

That resort anchors an even larger development, which includes seven resort hotels, 12,500 guest rooms, 1.8 million square feet of meeting and convention space, 1.6 million square feet of retail, 550,000 square feet of casino space and a total of 25,000 seats in venues for live entertainment.

"If you take a piece of the (Las Vegas) Strip of what is now the Wynn resort and what is now the Bellagio resort -- that piece in Las Vegas -- move it over to Macau, that's about the volume of space and distance generally and about the number of rooms that are being developed there," Weidner said.

The emergence of Macau as a premier gaming destination has given Singapore hope after the nation rejected gaming last year and 20 years ago.

In a second keynote address by a Las Vegas representative, Mirman said Harrah's would use the strength of its world-renowned brands to generate interest in Singapore.

Mirman explained how Harrah's generates customer loyalty in the United States with its network of local and regional resorts. He said a resort in Singapore is a logical next step for his company.

One of the company's strengths is in driving repeat business and he said the company would develop an iconic resort that would not only create new interest in the city, but generate repeat customers as well.

Mirman did not disclose many specifics about Harrah's plans for Singapore, but used his time to describe the company's successes in the United States and explained how, through the company's Total Rewards loyalty program, that the company has become experts, generating repeat business by knowing its customers.

He pointed out that about 60 percent of Singapore's visitors are repeat guests, while his company has designed programs that have resulted in 81 percent repeat customers.

"We want to drive the repeat tourist experience with key attractions in an iconic facility," Mirman said.

"It's (Singapore) a tremendous opportunity," he said, "and we're excited about it."

Richard N. Velotta covers tourism and gaming for In Business Las Vegas and its sister publication, the Las Vegas Sun. He can be reached at (702) 259-4061 or by e-mail at velotta@lasvegassun.com.