Operator News

South Korea – Mohegan Gaming secures permits for Inspire Korea’s June 2022 opening

By Phil - 15 November 2019

Having secured as series of permits Mohegan Gaming has confirmed it is one course to open the first part of Inspire, its resort casino destined for South Korea, in June 2022.

The first phase will include a five-star hotel with 1,256 rooms, a 15,000-seat arena, convention halls, and a foreigner-only casino, costing an investment cost of $1.29bn.The fourth and final phase won’t open until 2031.

Mario Kontomerkos, CEO of MGE, said: “All of the major permits that are necessary to break ground, we received in May and we are under construction as we speak and we are looking forward to opening in early part of 2022.

“Inspire will be unlike any other integrated resort in Asia and the reason for that in addition to the typical amenities that you will see in an integrated resort, we are also going to integrate seamlessly into this resort a 15,000-seat arena that will bring Western concert entertainment as well as Korean and other Asian concert entertainment,” he added. “We will be bringing Digital Street, which will be a great showcase for local Korean food, retail and technological talent and finally we will have a theme park that will be unlike any other in Asia.”

Phase 1A of Inspire’s multi-phased development on just over 420 acres (1,700,000㎡) of Incheon Airport’s 1,079-acre (4,367,000㎡) IBC-III parcel of land will include a 5-star resort hotel with over 1,250 rooms, suites and villas, a 15,000-seat state-of-the-art concert and sports arena, a gaming floor offering 150 table games and 700 slots/electronic games and a hemispherical dome featuring over 48,000 sq. ft. of climate-controlled indoor pool space with rides, dining and retail.

There will also be 204,000 square-feet (19,000㎡) of conference and convention space including the largest hotel ballroom in Incheon/Seoul at 60,460 sq. ft.

Inspire’s phase 1B includes the over 99-acre (404,000m2) Paramount Picture-branded theme park with connecting entertainment and retail village scheduled to open in 2025. Building upon the anticipated success of the two major phased openings, Inspire’s presence in the region will contribute to South Korea’s national economic development through job creation and the introduction of new tourism around Incheon Airport, a Northeast Asian hub airport, driving the growth of the country’s domestic tourism industry in terms of both quality and quantity.