A consortium of will build a new South Korean casino, which will be a first for the country. Caesars Entertainment and Indonesia’s Lippo conglomerate has received a preliminary license to build the resort near the country’s largest airport, stepping up competition among Asian countries to lure Chinese tourists. The Indonesian-U.S. consortium plans to spend 743.7 billion won ($696 million) to open a casino town in Incheon in 2018, the nation’s culture ministry said in a statement Tuesday. It is the first South Korean casino license given to foreign investors, though a final approval is pending. It will become the country’s…

From Business Week – South Korea’s Incheon city said Thursday a $290 billion plan to transform a fishing village into a rival to the Chinese gambling enclave of Macau has collapsed. Incheon Free Economic Zone official Jung Mi-hyun said luxury hotel operator Kempinski AG, a key member of the development consortium, failed to raise a promised $40 million by the end of July. Kempinski’s Korean unit KI Corp. is the largest shareholder in the consortium, Eightcity Co. Korean Air Lines Co. is the second-largest. According to Incheon city, Kempinski agreed in May to the $40 million investment and to pay…