Luxury Macau hotel THE 13 looks set to open before the end of the month after being granted all required licenses by the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO).
Macau News Agency is reporting that the MGTO has now issued THE 13 Hotel with a number of necessary licenses following its second round of inspections in late July. The licenses cover the hotel’s food and beverage areas, the health club and the bar.
The MGTO had previously refused issuance of the required licenses following its first inspection in June, requesting instead that a series of defects be fixed. They included activation of the passenger lifts, improving defective finishes to guest rooms including defective in-room facilities such as switches and televisions plus finishing touches to the luggage room, cloak rooms, the business center, changing room and other areas in the hotel’s podium section.
Hotel operator South Shore Holdings Limited announced earlier this month that it “expects THE 13 Hotel will open on or before 31 August 2018.”
THE 13 has endured a series of delays over the past 18 months, including a total of seven changes to its planned opening date. Originally scheduled to open on 31 March 2017, the date has since been revised at various times to 31 July 2017, 31 December 2017, 31 March 2018, 30 April 2018, 30 June 2018 and 31 July 2018. It now looks set to finally launch in August.
South Shore has previously stated its intention to apply for the provision of gaming tables at THE 13, although any such eventuation will almost certainly have to wait until 2019 after Macau’s gaming regulator stated recently that the city’s new-to-market table allocation for 2018 has been “maxed out” under the government’s table cap.