Wakayama has announced that two companies have responded to the prefecture’s RFP assessment call, which ran from late March to the end of April as part of the IR bid process.
The applicants were Suncity Group Holdings Japan Co Ltd, the Japanese arm of Hong Kong’s Suncity Group, and Clairvest Neem Ventures which is the local subsidiary of Canadian IR investment firm Clairvest Group.
There was no response from Barrière, the French operator which had initially showed interest, or from Philippines IR operator Bloomberry Resorts.
Clairvest was initially eyeing a bid for a Hokkaido IR, but redirected its focus last November after Hokkaido Governor Naomichi Suzuki indicated the prefecture would not be pursuing an IR bid.
The prefecture will announce the results of the assessment in mid-May. Operators who pass this phase will have until August to present a business plan and the prefecture will decide on its preferred partner by mid-November.
The call for operators comes at a time when there has been wide-ranging global impact from the COVID-19 pandemic. Governor Yoshinobu Nisaka said he was relieved to see two operators come forward.
