Daesik Han: Modern Visionary

August 31, 2022 Philippines Casino & Hotel

Sits down with Daesik Han, Chairman and CEO of Hann Philippines Inc, to discuss his recently rebranded Philippines property and ambitious expansion plans in the rapidly growing Philippines gaming hub of Clark.

One of the earliest movers in Clark’s rise as an international casino destination, Daesik Han – the Chairman and CEO of Hann Philippines – first opened Widus as a hotel only back in 2008 before adding a casino 12 months later with a modest 24 tables and 150 slot machines.

He later expanded this to 67 tables and around 370 slots.

However, his latest expansion project – which has seen Widus Hotel & Casino rebranded as Hann Casino Resort – grows on this further with 147 tables and 868 machines. All told, the Hann expansion covers 130,000 square meters including 380 hotel rooms across 19 storeys of the Philippines’ first ever Swissôtel, specialty dining options, retail outlets, a swimming pool, an executive lounge and event venues such as a ballroom and function rooms.

Han isn’t finished yet, however, having announced in 2019 a newly signed agreement to develop three golf courses and four hotels on 450 hectares of land in the nearby planned community of New Clark City. To be known as Hann Lux, the development will include a Banyan Tree Hotel, among others, while the golf courses are being designed by some of the biggest names in world golf – namely Nicklaus Design, South Korea’s KJ Choi and Nick Faldo.

With Han clearly leading the way in elevating Clark to become a truly international gaming and leisure destination, IAG’s Managing Editor Ben Blaschke recently spent time at Hann Casino Resort where he sat down with the man himself to learn more about his plans for the region.

Ben Blaschke: Mr Han, you recently opened Hann Casino Resort, formerly known as Widus, as part of a US$600 million redevelopment and have also announced plans for a new resort nearby in New Clark City. What is your long-term vision for your company here in Clark?

Daesik Han: I look at how to make ourselves different from others because the gaming industry is very, very dynamic. It started in Las Vegas, it moved to Macau and it is spreading in Asia. So I’ve always been thinking about how to make this thing, my product, different from everybody else, and what we are thinking right now is two ways of making things different.

The first one is with golf. If I’m not mistaken, I read an article from UNLV (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) about what the most valuable facilities per dollar of investment into each square meter are. The most valuable one was parking, because before there was no proper parking structure, but one of the worst was a golf course.

But the reason I’m trying to focus on golf here is because I think [our] strategy has to be different from market to market. For instance, after Solaire – which is the leader of the gaming industry in the Philippines – opened [in Manila] in 2013 a lot of casinos were affected. But in our case, we still had around 13% growth because our market (in Clark) is very, very different from the Solaire market. Our market: a lot of them are coming for golf and different entertainment [options] near here. And even in this local market, golf [follows the economy], so when the economy experiences growth, golf grows together with it. That’s what happened in Korea.