Las Vegas Sands hopes to attract crowds to Venetian Macau with a new Cirque du Soleil show called Zaia, which tells the story of a girl's journey into outer space.
"Zaia was probably the biggest investment in terms of a single event," Bradley Stone, executive Vice President of Las Vegas Sands, told Reuters. "It's all part of really changing what Macau is all about."
Zaia is Asia's first permanent Cirque du Soleil installation and has an initial contract of ten years.
"Obviously, there's the big gamble here, no pun intended, which is that all of these gamblers that we know Macau can attract are also going to want to see shows and go to great restaurants and do things other than just gamble," Mario D'amico, Senior Vice-President for Marketing for Cirque de Soleil told Reuters.
Although Cirque du Soleil shows have toured Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan, they have had only limited exposure in China.
"One of our challenges here is to explain to the Chinese public that the kind of shows we are developing are very inspired by the long tradition of Chinese circus that we do respect a lot, but that we are bringing the flavor of 42 nationalities," Cirque du Soleil's Chief Executive Daniel Lamarre told the Associated Press.