Sabrina Ho looks to Macau art fairs and auctions to diversify economy far from casinos

As pressure grows on Macau to find new reasons for revenue, scion of casino dynasty imagines an alternative future for the other SAR
Sabrina Ho Chiu-yeng is doing what she can to help you Macau diversify. The 26-year-old daughter of Stanley Ho Hung-sun might be also known for gracing society and entertainment pages, but also in January she organised the 1st Macau sales by China’s state-owned Poly Auction and then in November held her very own annual hotel art fair, having already launched an exhibition to advertise the job of young art graduates in September.

“Macau is changing,” she tells The Collector. “We don’t wish to rely just on the gaming industry. We would like more families into the future in charge of holidays, we should boost our cultural and inventive industries.”
It is a politically correct view for the daughter of a casino magnate. Macau is in the cross hairs of Beijing’s war on corruption and capital outflow. The central government started urging the city to give up its dependence on the gaming sector, the required taxes where purchase most public expenditures, back throughout the boom years, once the “build it and they can come” mentality ruled the casino industry. Today, mainland policies to discourage high rollers joined with a slowing economy have risen pressure to find new revenues.
Fundamental change may be slow into the future. Five casinos have opened since 2012 and more take presctiption just how, including two from branches in the Ho empire – the Grand Lisboa Palace, led by Ho’s mother, Angela Leong On-kei (Stanley’s so-called “fourth wife”), and MGM Cotai, headed by Stanley ho daughter‘s half-sister Pansy Ho Chiu-king.

So are Sabrina’s cultural endeavours all slightly of soft pr for the clan?
Well, China’s biggest auction house is treat­ing her seriously, and hopes her youthful energy and family connections will help it plunge into a new and wealthy market where no international house has a presence. Inturn, Ho says, she would like the auctions to help you attract tourists and maybe let the city’s 600,000 residents to produce much more of an interest in culture. The partnership, called Poly Auction Macau, is 51 percent of Poly as well as the rest by Ho’s company, Chiu Yeng Culture.
Ho spent my childhood years surrounded by art and also other collectables of her parents but she actually is a newcomer on the auctions business. After graduating having an arts degree from your University of Hong Kong, in 2013, she handled the branding and marketing side in the family’s hotel and property businesses. “But I like art and I asked Poly easily can perform in your free time at their Hong Kong office, to discover the auction world,” she says.
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