The 22-floor Macau Landmark hotel offers 451 guestrooms and a wide range of recreation facilities, including the famous 24-hour Palace Casino.

Developers are aiming to recreate Xanadu in Asia, through the construction of Macau Fisherman’s Wharf, one of the most ambitious tourism projects the Pearl River Delta has ever seen. The man who has made this dream materialize is David Chow, a man who takes great pride in his dedication to Macau.
In February 2000, barely two months after the handover of Macau back to China, Mr. Chow laid out the plans for his $300 million entertainment complex. Project Xanadu, as it was then known, would be a family-oriented entertainment pier in Macau’s outer harbor that would occupy an area of one million square feet, 40% of which was to be reclaimed from the sea.

At the time Macau was still in a transition period following the Portuguese handover and many regarded Mr. Chow’s idea as little more than a pipedream. “When I first presented my plans to the government, some people did not understand the concept behind it,” he explains. “They said it couldn’t be done – that it was too ambitious.” However, this lukewarm reception did not deter Mr. Chow and five years after the plans were given the green light, his vision has finally taken shape: Fisherman’s Wharf – billed as Macau’s “stately pleasure-dome” – is a reality.

As Fisherman’s Wharf transforms from dream into reality, visitors arriving to Macau by ferry may be doing a double-take when they catch their first glimpse of scenes from what could be Miami, Rome, Old England, or even Mount Vesuvius. Mr. Chow, one of the territory’s most famous businessmen and world travelers, has brought a piece of the world back to the shores of Macau’s outer harbor.

Macau Fisherman’s Wharf commands attention with its colorful collection of architecture based on waterfront buildings from around the world. The family entertainment destination will feature an upscale nightlife district with pubs and a disco, children’s attractions that include rides and shows, a luxury hotel, Macau’s largest convention center, and an array of international dining and shopping venues from renowned Hong Kong retailers. If that is not enough to satisfy a visiting family, there will even be a flame-erupting volcano.

The second phase comprises a further three hotels, a marina, an exhibition center, a new executive office building, and a casino

“I came up with the idea for Fisherman’s Wharf after a lifetime of travel: I wanted to take the best parts from all over the world and bring them to Macau,” enthuses Chow.

“Although we have incorporated some elements of local culture, when you walk around Fisherman’s Wharf, you will not feel that you are in Macau. The idea behind the whole project was to attract families to Macau, as there were few venues where children and parents could go to together to enjoy themselves.”

This of course, is very much in line with government policy, one of whose prime goals is to attract more family-based entertainment and, by extension, more families to Macau. It was not always so, and Mr. Chow’s Fisherman’s Wharf is said to have turned heads in government. Before David Chow’s envisioning of Fisherman’s Wharf, no one had ever spoken of bringing families to Macau, and efforts were concentrated on the gaming industry. Soon after the project was approved, the government started raising the issue of more family-oriented tourism, and now it has become a major focus of Macau’s tourism strategy.

Architectural replicas from cities such as Venice and Amsterdam will be one of the theme park’s great attractions.

Mr. Chow had long been conceiving his plan to build an educational, family-oriented theme park, and his move to wait until after the handover back to China was a deliberate one. “I wanted to show my commitment to the new Macau,” explains Mr. Chow. “It was my way of saying thank you to Macau for making me a wealthy man. I believe that if you make your wealth here, you are indebted to invest it back into Macau, to make it a better place.”

Fisherman’s Wharf, or Macau’s Xanadu, will certainly give the growing crowds of visitors to Macau something to cherish, and, when Mr. Chow receives approval for the second phase of his project, a further three hotels, a marina, an exhibition center, a new executive office building and, perhaps inevitably, a casino will also be built. “After all, you have to have someplace for the adults to play as well,” smiles Mr. Chow.