Abstract: Macao is a city with fusion of Chinese and Portuguese colonial culture and
heritage. The preservation and enhancement of this unique cultural heritage will
enhance its attraction for visitors. At present, Macao is famous for its casinos
and has been called the ‘Monte Carlo of the Orient’ with a vast amount of
government revenue being collected from the casinos and gaming activities.
Gaming has been an important part of Macao's tourism, with the ‘gaming
paradise’ image of Macao being so dominant that a large proportion of visitors
neglect its cultural heritage resources. Macao is the focus of this study because
the government had submitted an application for Macao to the UNESCO World
Heritage Centre in 2002 for adding 12 of the historical architectures in the SAR
to its World Heritage list, and applied successfully in 2005, to promote Macao as
the ‘City of Cultural Heritage in Asia’. Macao’s culture, gaming and
entertainments form its major attraction for visitors and must be combined in
order to boost Macao's multi-dimensional image and positive effects on the
community in the long run. The development of quality cultural heritage tourism
is needed in developing Macao as a cultural heritage tourism destination. Thus,
the aim of this research is to develop and test a theoretical model of quality
cultural heritage tourism. It offers an integrated approach to understanding
cultural heritage development and management of tourist destinations, and
attempts to extend the theoretical and empirical evidence regarding causal relationships including quality of experience, perceived quality, satisfaction and
behaviour intentions. The previous literature has already presented the
relationship among perceived quality, quality of experience, satisfaction and
behaviour intentions in cultural heritage tourism. However, there is a relative lack
of academic interest, particularly in Macao. This study tries to investigate the
quality and related constructs in cultural heritage tourism. It seeks to understand
the major constructs considered by local stakeholders and visitors in evaluating
the quality in cultural heritage tourism, the importance of the availability of quality
in the overall experience, visitors’ behaviour toward quality cultural heritage
tourism and also the constructs related to quality.