Gastronomy Tourist Behavior in Macao as the “UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy”

As a demonstration of local food culture, gastronomy is an integral part of the tourism experience, which can strictly give an impact to the visitors about the destination. It even might be relative to the encouragement or discouragement the revisiting intention of tourists to any destination. Since Macao was ascribed to UNESCO Creative City Network of Gastronomy in 2017, with the promotion from the government, Macao has been considered officially as a destination with gastronomy attractions. However, there are rarely visitors to Macao with the motivation particularly for experiencing its gastronomy aspect, besides its famed gambling activities. In terms of existing academic research, relatively few studies related to food tourism have been conducted in conjunction with food culture in Macao. Even the more established disciplines that study the “human element” of food consumption, such as anthropology, sociology, or cultural studies, have rarely explored the consumption experiences of food tourists. Aiming for a deeper mining to visitors’ real experience during their stay in Macao, this study has investigated tourists’ perception and its effect on loyalty through questionnaires and interviews. Moreover, based on Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory, this study has also explored the connection among tourists’ behaviors, culture impressions, and the holistic impressions of Macao. The results have revealed that the perception of gastronomy tourism is multi-dimensional, which could create cultural value and work as guidance for further promotion. The stronger the visiting motivation, the higher the tourists’ perception, so that tourists would be more loyalty to the destination.