Macao Cultural Heritage Tourism Development

Macau is renowned for its image of a"gambling city", but this is not ideal for a destination image. With the"Historic Centre of Macau"being recognized in the UNESCO world heritage list, the Macau SAR government wants to develop Cultural heritage tourism to diversify not only the image but also tourism products of Macau. It is therefore necessary to carry out study of Macau's cultural heritage tourism at this at stage.More than 18.7 million visitors visited Macau in the year 2005, mainly from the Greater China region, which include mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, with over 90% of the total visitors. Therefore this survey is focused on these markets and the questionnaire is written in Chinese. This survey has three main objectives: (1) to understand visitors'perceptions about our cultural heritage and how they evaluate them; (2) to identify the major factors that affect the development of Cultural heritage tourism; and (3) to determine whether different groups of travelers have different needs in Cultural heritage tourism.This survey collected 820 questionnaires for analysis. Descriptive statistics, factor analysis and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were use to analyze the data. Below are the major findings:1. The major purpose to visit Macau is for"leisure"and followed by"visit cultural heritage", this represents that visitors agree Macau has the potential to develop its Cultural heritage tourism.2. Successfully identify the five major factors that can affect the development of Cultural heritage tourism.3. The significant differences in the above factors with different demographic profiles, namely"origin of visitor","age"and"level of education".Based on the findings and other secondary data, an objective analysis is carried out focusing on the different aspects of competitiveness of Macau's Cultural heritage tourism. A case study on"Casas-Museu da Taipa"is used to determine the path of product development on cultural heritage tourism in Macau.Finally, I hope that this study will used to the development of the Cultural heritage tourism in Macau in sustainable way.