Meet West in East: New Routing of Old Footprints in the Heritage Tourism in Macao

After centuries of cohabitation in a tiny seaside town, a unique example of coexistence has been demonstrated in Macao, by forming different living communities, lifestyles, and cultures from Chinese and Portuguese. The incorporation of the “Historic Centre of Macao” as World Heritage List in 2005 by UNESCO marks the universal value of the Sino-Lusophone cultural mixture from east and west, which would be an irreplaceable attraction for tourists, especially for those fascinated with Portuguese culture destinations or historic background. However, current tourist arrival in Macao is mostly from Chinese-speaker, which means that there’s a room for cultivating incoming tourists from the source of non-Chinese-speaker. The purpose of this study is to explore the possible undiscovered inbound visitors’ source to Macao, by introducing the theme of “Portuguese Origins (Origem Portuguesa)”. By introducing the mentioned concept into the new routes design for the certain visitors, it aims to build a new approach of the destination image to Macao, by emphasizing its cultural attraction besides the current gaming destination. The spatial analysis module of ArcGIS is used in this study to code the “Portuguese Origins” in Macao. Through the field measurement and consultative interview methods, this study confirmed that the concept of “Portuguese Origins” can demonstrate the cultural uniqueness in Macao, which would be a positive impact on the attractiveness of non-Chinese-speaker inbound tourists. To the finding, four theme routes of “Portuguese Origins” are designed by linking the relevant locations in Macao, in order to serve as the tourist attractions with these optimal paths.