Three additional rides at Genting SkyWorlds to be commissioned in 4Q22

• RWG's hill-top resort registered a substantially higher number of visitors at 9.9 million people in 1H22 compared to 2.1 million people a year earlier.

KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 26): Genting Malaysia Bhd said up to three additional rides at its Genting SkyWorlds theme park are expected to be commissioned within the fourth quarter of 2022 (4Q22), as the casino and hotel operator plans investments in targeted events and promotions to drive leisure traffic to its hilltop resort in Pahang.

"[We plan to] leverage existing assets to attract foreign and domestic visitations," the company said in its latest corporate presentation for September 2022.

Genting Malaysia, which undertakes its local operations under Resorts World Genting (RWG), said RWG plans to optimise yield contributions by focusing on key business segments and database marketing efforts.

According to Genting Malaysia, which also has operations in the US, Bahamas and the UK besides Egypt, RWG has continued to ramp up its operations while capitalising on demand for integrated resort offerings.

"Genting Malaysia is well diversified geographically. Malaysia is the group’s largest revenue contributor.

"Recovery momentum of the group’s operations worldwide [is] on firm footing," said Genting Malaysia, whose global businesses have contended with the impact of movement restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic from early 2020.

The situation now is, however, different as vaccination-driven optimism has led to anticipation that the Covid-19 outbreak can be curbed, resulting in the easing of global movement restrictions and the reopening of international borders.

"Improvement in [Genting Malaysia's] financial performance is mainly driven by the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions in Malaysia, and the reopening of Malaysia’s national borders since April 1," said the company, which organised the soft opening of Genting SkyWorlds on Feb 8.

According to reports, Genting SkyWorlds, which was built across an estimated 10.4ha of land within Genting Malaysia' hill-top resort in Pahang, already has more than 20 rides and attractions.

Genting Malaysia said in its corporate presentation that RWG's hill-top resort registered a substantially higher number of visitors at 9.9 million people in the first half of 2022 (1H22) compared to 2.1 million people a year earlier, driven by Covid-19 vaccine-driven easing of movement restrictions.

According to Genting Malaysia, RWG's hill-top resort had an estimated capacity of 5,700 hotel rooms as at June 30, 2022.

For 1H22, Genting Malaysia said RWG registered a 93% hotel room occupancy rate compared to 63% a year earlier.

Genting Malaysia had reported better financials for the second quarter ended June 30, 2022 (2QFY22) and 1HFY22 compared to a year earlier as the company's Malaysian and global businesses improved due to Covid-19 vaccine-driven easing of movement restrictions.

According to Genting Malaysia's Bursa Malaysia filing on Aug 25, 2022, the group trimmed its net loss to RM10.85 million in 2QFY22 from RM348.11 million a year earlier as revenue more than doubled to RM2.18 billion from RM817.87 million.

For 1HFY22, Genting Malaysia's net loss narrowed to RM137.38 million from RM831.7 million a year earlier while revenue jumped to RM3.9 billion from RM1.44 billion.