Operator News
Spain – Catalonia finally gives go ahead for Hard Rock Casino in Vila-Seca and Salou
By Phil - 29 May 2018
The Government of Catalonia has declared via its Official Gazette that it has given Hard Rock Entertainment World the green light to build a casino and leisure complex in Vila-Seca and Salou.
The casino will be called Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tarragona, España. The Hard Rock Entertainment World complex will include two hotels with over 1,000 rooms, a large shopping area, along with entertainment facilities, and a 10,000-square-meter casino. The casino could have as many as 1,200 slot machines and 100 table games making it one of the largest casinos in Europe. The company is reportedly planning to invest as much as €2bn into the scheme.
The project will consist of a unique combination of hotels and convention areas, with world-class entertainment, dining and shopping. In July last year, the company outlined the details of the new project in a press release. According to the release, the new project will “consist of a unique combination of hotels and convention areas, with world-class entertainment, dining and shopping. This project is defined through a complete Zoning Plan already approved by the Catalan Government, with a maximum capacity of 745.000 sq. meters for all the different uses and an estimated global investment of €2,000 million, including the cost of the land and infrastructures needed, to be developed by phases in the next years.
“Phase 1 will be headlined by the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tarragona integrated resort. The Hard Rock integrated resort will also include a collaboration with PortAventura on the development of a family-oriented hotel of up to 500 rooms, and Value Retail on a luxury tourism shopping destination of approximately 10,000 square meters, featuring more than 75 shops. Hard Rock Entertainment World will bring thousands of new jobs and significant foreign direct investments. Phase one minimum investment is expected to exceed €600 million and is estimated to create more than 11,500 direct and indirect construction and ongoing jobs and an economic impact to the region of more than €1.3bn.”
Jim Allen, Chairman and CEO of Hard Rock International said that the company looked forward to “bringing first-class entertainment and hospitality experiences to the region.”
The construction of the Tourist and Recreation Complex will generate between 9,000 and 13,000 direct jobs during its construction, which will be phased in over a period of around six years according to a study released by the Faculty of Geography and Tourism at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (The public university of Tarragona). The study argues that, once the CRT is running at full capacity, it will generate between €3,900 and €5,400m per year in the Camp de Tarragona. The study also found that the addition of the new complex could add as many as 3 to 5m visitors to the area regardless of whether they stay overnight. These visitors could spend between €850m and €1,145m a year.
