The comparisons can begin in earnest on Aug. 28 when the $2.4 billion, 3,000-room resort opens its doors to the public.

Las Vegas Sands Corp. President William Weidner sees a number of similarities between the Las Vegas of old and emerging Macau and told reporters in a conference call last week that opening the Venetian Macau is like "truncating the 76 years of development of Las Vegas into one place under one roof."

While Las Vegas' Venetian is one of the later additions to the Las Vegas Strip, having opened in 1999, the Venetian Macau will be the first property on the Cotai Strip, a piece of reclaimed land between the islands of Coloane and Taipa off the coast of Macau.

"This is truly a defining moment for Las Vegas Sands Corp., as our work to open Macau's first multiuse integrated resort comes to fruition and our vision of creating 'Asia's Las Vegas' comes one step closer to reality," company Chairman and Chief Executive Sheldon Adelson said this year in a statement announcing the opening date.

Next year, the Cotai Strip will be extended, with the openings of the 400-room Four Seasons, followed by properties with the Sheraton, Sangri-La, St. Regis and Traders brands with hotels by Hilton, Conrad, Raffles and Fairmont coming in 2009. All of the 20,000 planned rooms are being built by Las Vegas Sands with the hotels to be operated under management contracts and the casinos run by Sands personnel.

The company will attempt to duplicate the formula that has made it extremely successful in Las Vegas “ playing host to conventions and trade shows during the week and focusing on leisure travelers and gamblers on weekends.

With 1.2 million square feet of convention space — nearly twice that of all of nearby Hong Kong — and located on the doorstep of heavily-populated Guangdong Province, Las Vegas Sands executives say they are poised to turn Macau from a day-trip market to a full-blown international resort.

Already, the Venetian Macau has snagged business away from other Asian convention centers.

As of early May, more than 20 trade-show organizers had committed to 44 events at the Venetian Macau. Separately, contracts have been signed for 20 corporate meetings in the first four months after opening, with big-time corporations like McDonald's, Deloitte, Johnson & Johnson and Nissan Motors among the clients.

As for the independent traveler, Brad Stone, executive vice president of the company, said the attraction would all be a matter of scale.

"As big as this building (Venetian Las Vegas) is, I kiddingly say it looks like a motel compared to the Venetian Macau," said Stone in an In Business Las Vegas Q&A interview that appears in this week's edition. "Where it differs is just the sheer scale of it, not necessarily in the room size, but the fact that we have a 15,000-seat arena there, the fact that we have roughly 3 1/2 times the shopping that we have in our Grand Canal Shoppes in Las Vegas."

Big-name retailers have been anxious to put locations in a gaming resort that has overtaken Las Vegas by casino revenue, especially with a company that already has tested the terrain with its ultrasuccessful Sands Macau, which opened in May 2004.

The Venetian Macau also will offer fine dining, an 1,800-seat showroom with a Cirque du Soleil show and a 15,000-seat arena that already has featured the Manchester United soccer team and in October will play host to the National Basketball Association's Orlando Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers. Also on tap will be the Venetian Macau Tennis Showdown, featuring the world's No. 1 player, Roger Federer, in a match against former No. 1 Pete Sampras on Nov. 24 in the third of three exhibition matches being played across Asia.

When it opens, the Venetian Macau will take over as the largest casino in the world and there are plans to expand it in the future.

The Sands Macau currently has the most table games with 740 to go along with 1,254 slot machines. When it opens, the Venetian Macau will have 850 table games and 4,100 slots with a final capacity of 1,150 table games and 7,000 slots.

Stone says the enormity of the property — it's the second-largest building in the world and the largest in Asia — will make it a must-see attraction in the market. Still, the company isn't taking any chances, developing a ferry line to deliver visitors directly to Taipa Island instead of the Macau ferry terminal and taking advantage of the resort's proximity to the Macau airport, which is 1 1/2 minutes away. Later this year, the company will offer flights on two Boeing 737 jets to bring in tourists from Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Korea, Indonesia and Singapore.

Gaming analysts are anxiously awaiting the opening, viewing it as a likely home run for Las Vegas Sands.

Robin Farley, a gaming analyst with UBS Investment Research, said July gaming revenue increased about 40 percent over the previous year to $810 million and Las Vegas Sands has about a 17 percent to 18 percent share of the market.

"The (Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau) data give us reason to be enthusiastic about Macau going forward, given a strong, growing market," added Larry Klatzkin, a gaming analyst with Jefferies & Co. Inc.

Among the fears analysts list for the market is an oversupply of gaming capacity and a slowdown in economic growth in China as well as regulatory and political changes in the local environment. She also said Las Vegas could suffer a decline in Asian visitors as a result of the opening.

But Weidner said he doesn't think the boom in Macau will hurt Las Vegas. His company already markets Las Vegas in Macau and Weidner believes Macau will never catch up to the critical mass of Las Vegas.