Application of cultural tourist typology in a gaming destination – Macao

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to study how cultural tourist typologies apply in an urban gaming destination and how such typologies could aid in the segmentation and profiling of this niche tourist market. Results showed that there exists a certain demand for cultural tourism in Macao and there are different ways to distinguish between cultural and non-cultural tourists, as well as to identify sub-groups of cultural tourists. The three approaches used to distinguish between the two cohorts came up with different percentages of cultural tourists within the total tourist sample. Other findings showed significant differences in trip characteristics and information search behaviour between the two cohorts and among sub-groups of cultural tourists. Such information could be used for profiling purposes. The resulting profiles have implications on marketing and promotion strategies which should not focus only on tourists' primary motives but should attempt to induce or arouse their secondary interests. The methodology could be applied to other destinations hoping to develop cultural tourism.

Keywords:

• cultural tourism
• cultural tourist typology
• Macao
• tourist profile

Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank Prof. Kristopher Preacher, Vanderbilt University, for his assistance with the Fisher's exact test (Preacher, 2001) used in this study.