International Journal of Social Science Research (IJSSR) eISSN: 2710-6276 | Vol. 3 No. 4 [December 2021]
Journal website: http://myjms.mohe.gov.my/index.php/ijssr
WHAT ARE THE BARRIERS TO THE RETURN OF CHINESE TOURISTS TO MACAU IN THE BACKGROUND
OF ANTI-CORRUPTION POLICIES
Martin Binglin Tang1, Grace Suk Ha Chan2* and Yvonne Yue He3
1 2 3 Faculty of International Tourism and Management, City University of Macau, Macau, CHINA
*Corresponding author: gracechan@cityu.mo
Article Information:
Article history:
Received date : 9 December 2021 Revised date : 28 December 2021 Accepted date : 28 December 2021 Published date : 30 December 2021
To cite this document:
Tang, M., Chan, G., & He, Y. (2021).
WHAT ARE THE BARRIERS TO THE RETURN OF CHINESE TOURISTS TO MACAU IN THE BACKGROUND OF ANTI-CORRUPTION POLICIES.
International Journal of Social Science Research, 3(4), 329-343.
Abstract: COVID-19 has caused a vital impact on global tourism. However, the tourism industry is still the dominant industry of Macau, which suffered a significant decline in the number of tourists compared to the pre-epidemic period. The mainland of China is the main visitors’ source for Macau in gambling. Therefore, this study on mainland residents’ travel motivation positively provided implications for industry management. A Qualitative method and an in-depth interview were applied in this study. Adopted purposive sampling and a total of 47 mainland Chinese residents were interviewed. Content analysis was used for data analysis. This Study extended push-pull theory and identified mainland residents' motivation to Macau.
Results identified travel motivation was affected by three dimensions included push factor, pull factor, and the intervening obstacle factor. According to these factors, we proposed a new model of the motivation of mainland Chinese residents to travel to Macau. Finally, it was found that several factors did influence the visitors
‘travel motivation, and the intervening obstacle played a key role in this model. Therefore, the recommendations for destination marketers were that marketers should reduce the unnecessary requirements to arrival visitors’
concerns with their travel.
Keywords：COVID-19, tourism motivation, Macau, push-pull theory.
1. Introduction
1.1 Research Background
The tourism industry is an economic sector which is difficult to be ignored in the process of economic development, especially in the development of urban tourism economy (Schäfer &
Hirsch, 2017). Despite numerous negative impacts of developing the tourism industry, such as deterioration of traffic conditions and higher daily necessity prices, the number of countries that have chosen to develop tourism is rising. Most of them had the desire to make it as a new economic growth point especially in developing areas (Pearce et al., 2015). In East Asia, Macau has lots of competing destinations, such as Tokyo, Hong Kong, Seoul and Singapore.
Especially in South Korea and Singapore, local casinos have been set up accordingly and competed with the most influential sector in Macau's tourism industry (Siu, 2007; Hsu, 2006).
Currently tourism industry has grown to be the most important sector of economic activity in Macau, even though the industry is not entirely supportive for all local stakeholders because of the associated negative effects (Greenwood & Dwyer, 2017).
Figure 1: Number of Inbound Tourists from Different Regions
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the Macau government has been adopting strict local pandemic prevention policy and border management. According to the Government of Macau Special Administrative Region (2021), could be observed in Figure 1, in February 2020 onwards, there was a sharp contraction in the number of inbound tourists to Macau.
Simultaneously, as an important benchmark of Macau's tourism industry, gaming industry was strongly affected in terms of revenue and the proportion of the industry's contribution to GDP, as shown in Figure 2.
0 500,000 1,000,000 1,500,000 2,000,000 2,500,000 3,000,000
Inbound Visitors
Mainland China Hong Kong Guangdong Province
Figure 2: Economic Contribution of Macau Gaming Industry
1.2 Research Gap and Objectives
Current research on tourists' motivation to Macau is multifaceted and diverse. However, research on tourists' motivation in the context of the pandemic is limited. Moreover, although many scholars have mentioned that the anti-corruption policy in mainland China has a great shock on the development of the tourism industry in Macau, there still exists a gap in the detailed research on the anti-corruption policy (Zhou, 2017). Simultaneously, the economic recession caused by the COVID-19 affects tourists' motivation to visit Macau and whether the impact of the economic change varies significantly depending on the tourists' occupational background have not been extensively studied.
However, since the origin of this tourism crisis is the outbreak of COVID-19, which forced Macau tourism industry to face a vital finance challenge (Ho, 2020). Hence, it’s necessary to explore the impact of existing anti-epidemic policy and the anti-corruption policy. Additionally, we also combined the recent economic fluctuations to explore what factors will influence the motivation of mainland Chinese residents to return to Macau.
Therefore, this study aims to achieve the four research objectives:
1) To investigate the factors that motivate Mainland China residents travel to Macau.
2) To investigate the impact of policies implemented by Chinese government on tourists' travel motivation.
3) To investigate the impact of household income changes on tourists' travel motivation.
4) To provide recommendation to the marketers to uplift their policies for seizing Chinese visitors.
2. Literature Review
2.1 Tourism Industry in Macau
Since the Macau government announced the " Gaming Liberalization " in 2002 and implemented individual visit program from Mainland China to Macau in 2003, local tourism industry has grown by leaps and bounds. In 2007, Macau's total gaming industry’s revenue surpassed that of the Las Vegas Strip, which was the old gaming capital of the world before (McCartney, 2008). In fact, in 2000, the total revenue of Macau's gaming industry was less than half of that of Las Vegas (Gu & Gao, 2006). The rapid development of the gaming industry is not only simulating Macau's GDP growth, but also profoundly rewritten the government's
0.00%
20.00%
40.00%
60.00%
80.00%
100.00%
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
20042005200620072008200920102011201220132014201520162017201820192020
(Unit: Billion Macau Dollars)
Total industry revenue Industry Employee Expenses Industry Tax Share Industry GDP contribution
revenue. Since 2008, Macau's gaming industry has contributed over 60% of GDP and over 70%
of public tax revenue (Gu & Tam, 2011).
Previous studies showed that the development of the casino industry can promote improvement of the labor market and social atmosphere of the local community (King & Tang, 2020). Some the other research also indicated that region that establish casino industry, its anti-risk capacity is stronger than others (Marlowe, Zheng, Farrish & Bravo, 2020).
Although the development of tourism in Macau may cause some negative social effects, such as local history and culture are commercialized and dilution of connotation (Greenwood &
Dwyer, 2017), or the potential security problem caused by the over-consumption of tourists from mainland China (Lai, Lu, Hitchcock & Liu, 2018). However, at the present stage, the tourism industry in Macau is still the most important pillar of the local economy and the most contributive financial source for government departments (Gu & Tam, 2011).
2.1.1 Theories of Motivation
According to Gnoth (1997), motivation is based on the response generated by the person's perceptions. It’s could be concluded motivation is the result of the interaction between the surrounding situation and the person. Furthermore, Young (1999) indicated that tourist motivation dominates personal destination decision-making. Özdemir and Çelebi (2018) defined tourism motivation is the meaningful feedback of a specific mental state, which is the reason for the traveler to set out on a trip. In other words, tourism motivation could be a valid explanation for travel-related decisions. Yoon and Uysal (2005) suggested that investigating reasons of tourism motivation generation requires taking basic human nature into consideration. Because of complex structure of tourism motivation, it is possible to achieve partial overlap between attraction resources and tourism motivations in order to assistant destination selection decisions (Andreu et al., 2005). However, based on the research of Witt and Wright (1992), although individual tourism motivation and decision-making environment vary from people, applications of dynamic structure did help a better understanding of motivation.
Wen et al. (2018) found that motivation varies across time, even in the same target group.
Previous research usually adapted Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory and Iso Ahola's model of motivation. As a complement to Iso Ahola's model, push and pull theory has been applied in tourism motivation research (Huang, Tsaur & Yang, 2012). Klenosky (2002) argued that in the push-pull model of travel motivation, the push factor is a key component to start a travel. On the other side, the pull factor dominated the tourist's destination decision-making. Bansal and Eiselt (2004) argued that effective intervention for push factors is difficult to achieve from a destination perspective, but the potential to exert influence on pull factors is relatively bigger.
Because many aspects of travel motivation are characterized by substantial commonalities with population migration, thus travel motivation can also be divided into pull factors and push factors (Dean & Suhartanto, 2019). However, Jianxia (2006) expanded on push-pull theory with intermediate obstacle factors, which were defined as factors that negatively affect motivation.
Kozak (2002) emphasized that destination managers should also promote the attributes that best match tourism motivations and focuse on their primary available resources on target customer group. The way to find target group is where the tourism motivation and destination
resources could be match perfectly. Therefore, destination managers should promote destination attributes through marketing tools and thereby encourage target groups of customers with similar tourism motivation backgrounds to visit the destination. Therefore, the study of motivation is crucial in the destination marketing process (Gnanapala, 2015).
2.2 Motivations of Mainland Chinese Tourists Travelling to Macau
Leong et al. (2015) stated that the study of motivation is based on human psychological and biological demands. Therefore, motivation comprehension could help destination managers to understanding enhancement of why tourists travel and what their expectation. This study used the widely accepted theory of travel motivation as the theoretical basis, namely the push-pull theory. This theory suggests that the destination attributes and personal background elements of the process dominant the formation and development of the travel motivation. (Ryan et al., 2010).
According to previous researches, type of mainland Chinese motivation can be divided into objective and subjective. Subjective tourism motivations can be categorized into these five factors: entertainment and novelty seeking, leisure activity, escape from pressure, casino sightseeing, and socialization (Park, Lee, & Miller, 2015) The objective tourism motivations are mainly influenced by the exit and entry policy, the anti-corruption policy of mainland China and the macroeconomic situation (Wong & Rosenbaum ,2012).
When it comes to the comparison between the tourism motivations of mainland Chinese tourists and those of Hong Kong, Taiwan and western countries, Song and Witt (2006) pointed out three push factors (knowledge and fun, relaxation and escape, and shopping and nightlife), four pull motivation factors (exciting and relaxing atmosphere, local and cultural resources, gambling and entertainment, and famous destination) constituted mainland Chinese tourism motivation.
3. Method
Qualitative methods are widely used for a variety of reasons. One underlying reason for this is the contentious demand for research within the field of social policy to understand complex behaviors, needs, systems, and cultures (Ritchie & Spencer, 2002). The purpose of this paper is to examine the motivational factors of mainland residents' travel to Macau and the effects of policies and household income on motivation. Snowball sampling was applied in this study.
Therefore, data analysis was based on a grounded theory framework. According to Hennink et al. (2017), the minimum number of interviews should be 16 to 24 to achieve meaning saturation. To achieve information saturation, in total 47 Mainland Chinese respondents were interviewed. Respondents were being invited by their friends via WeChat. A consent form was sent to those who agree to take part in this interview. Interviews were hold in a cafe and recorded the whole process. Each interview took about 40 minutes.
This research adopted qualitative in-depth interview and was conducted in a semi-structured format with open-ended questions. Granot, Brashear and Motta (2012) indicated that open- ended questions establish the areas to be explored while allowing the interviewer to take any direction. It could facilitate the researcher to obtain information that is more relevant to the interviewee's reality. The semi-structured interview surpassed the questionnaire in terms of flexibility and facilitated the revelation of the interviewees' hidden perspectives in their experiences (Qu & Dumay, 2011).
To enhance the validity and reliability, the questions pre-set were approval by industry practitioners and professors. Back translation was adopted in the question set. To this end, the following three open-ended interview questions were created for semi-structured interviews.
The first question was set up to examine the factors that motivate mainland Chinese residents to travel during the COVID-19 period. The other two were to identify the effects of policy and household income fluctuations on travel motivation.
(1) What factors have attracted you to travel to Macau in COVID-19 background?
(2) How have anti-corruption policies affected your travel motivation to Macau? If not, how have outbound policies affected your motivation to travel to Macau?
(3) How do you think fluctuations in household income have affected your motivation to travel to Macau?
The interview was basically conducted in Cantonese. However, questions were originally written in English. Therefore, the questions were translated into Chinese after establishment and repeatedly confirmed by the author so that avoided original intention being misinterpreted or misunderstood. Based on previous research, the data were organized and summarized according to the themes.
Content analysis was adopted for data analysis. Data analysis and coding were performed in different stages. The codes generated after the analysis and classification were shown in the theme chart. In this study, each theme was described and analyzed separately under the domain analysis approach. The results of coding at different levels were compared to explore the differences in content expressions of different respondents.
4. Result and Discussion 4.1 Profile of Sample
The in-depth interviews were conducted voluntarily. All sensitive personal information from participants was kept confidential and only applied for research purposes. In grounded theory studies, 25 to 30 participants interviewed is the minimum sample size required to achieve saturation and redundancy (Chun, Birks & Francis, 2019). From November 2020 to March 2021, a total of 47 individuals volunteered were in-depth interviewed. Demographic information of the sample is shown in Table 1. Purposeful sampling ensures that different characteristics of respondents are included in the study (Shaheen & Pradhan, 2019), thus could provide a wide range of information for analysis. Considering that previous studies have shown that the development of Macau's tourism industry is deeply affected by China's anti-corruption (Long & Chan,2020), this interview included 32 people who were more affected by policy factors due to their career background and 15 people who were less affected comparatively.
Among them, 32 interviewees worked in mainland Chinese public institutions. The other 11 interviewees are from private manufacturing enterprises in mainland China. The remaining 4 interviewees are engaged in other private enterprises industries. All interviewees have at least one travel experience to Macau.
Table 1: Sample Demographic Information
Demographic Frequency % Demographic Frequency %
Career background Number of trips to Macao
Public institutions 32 68.1 1 2 4.3
Private manufacturing companies 11 23.4 2 2 4.3
Private foreign trade enterprises 4 8.5 3 3 6.4
Gender 4 3 6.4
Male 28 59.6 5 1 2.1
Female 19 40.4 >5 32 68.1
The reason for selecting 11 respondents from the private manufacturing firm, because they started taking unpaid leave at the beginning of the outbreak. The other four respondents are from foreign trade companies who work away from home. Original expectation of such setup was for exploring the effect of household income fluctuations on travel motivation.
4.2 Tourism Motivation Model Based on Push-Pull Theory
The categorization results were found to be consistent with the "push-pull theory of tourism destination model", which divided into three dimensions: pull factors, push factors and intervening obstacles (Uysal, Li & Turk, 2008). Therefore, the collected information was divided into 3 dimensions as shown in Table 2. The First is the pull factor, which has 4 items:
Joyfulness, Leisure, Family and friends’ reunion and Shopping and social relation, Finally, there is the intervening obstacle which has 3 items: Free time, financial factor, and policy factor.
Table 2: Tourism Motivation Model Factors Resulting from Structured Interview Dimensions Categories
Pushing factor ⚫ Joyfulness
⚫ Leisure
⚫ Family tourist
⚫ Shopping and social relation Pulling factor ⚫ Fun and knowledge
⚫ Relaxing atmosphere
⚫ Local resource
⚫ Entertainment Intervening obstacle ⚫ Free time
⚫ Financial factor
⚫ Policy factor
4.2.1 Push Factors
The push factors were considered as contributing factors to the formation of motives at the point of departure of migration, such as low employment rates, unmet consumer demand, etc.
(Fatoki & Patswawairi, 2012). After collation, the push factors in this study were categorized into four dimensions, as shown in Table 2.
4.2.1.1 Joyfulness
45 out of 47 people mentioned their motivation for travel to Macau as joyfulness. Most of them said that they need to have fun during the holidays and that’s why they choose Macau as an ideal destination.
“We do medical records management is actually quite boring work, in the case of not being able to go abroad to travel in Macau for me is also a funny choice.” (P13)
“It is much more fun to travel in Macau during the New Year than to visit family.” (P12) 4.2.1.2 Leisure
35 of the 47 people mentioned that their visit to a Macau was driven by their own need for leisure. This leisure demands include but are not limited to massage, gambling, and casino sightseeing.
“In fact, I do not like to gamble, need a place to vent. After gambling I usually go shopping with my colleagues in Galaxy (Resort), then get back to Macau Island to eat Portuguese food.” (P38)
“Although I have not been to Venice, but the Venetian inside the boating project is still very fun.
Every time when I have a break from my business trip, I like to play this project again with my colleagues.” (P40)
4.2.1.3 Family Travel
22 of the 47 mentioned their motivation to visit Macau integrated resorts include family travel.
The vast majority of these mentioned that the older and younger members of the family were more selective in their choice of destination and the conditions of the destination should be more convenient for the older members. They also mentioned that Macau resorts should add more family-friendly amenities for the younger members.
“Hong Kong has been unable to go, the children want to go out to play, think about it or Macau is the most suitable, just the hotel prices are not expensive. In the Venetian Resort we do not need to climb the mountain, so the elderly in our family also came with.” (P15)
4.2.1.4 Shopping and Society Relation
21 out of 47 people mentioned that the reasons for going to Macau partially included shopping and society relation. many respondents expressed their shopping needs, which included purchasing goods such as cosmetics, electronics, etc. The social media factor was repeatedly mentioned, although the process revealed that the majority of respondents from the public institutions indicated that they had no motivation to post their own experiences on social media.
“Cosmetics taken in the mainland are too expensive, in addition to I buy for myself, I also help friends and family to bring. Apple's electronic products are also, but I'm still worried when entering the border.” (P1)
“The Paris Tower in front of the Parisian (resort) is really good for photos, I saw many colleagues and friends have gone there to hit the card, so at that time I also went with the wind.” (P44)
4.2.2 Pull Factors that Motivate Tourists Travel to Macau
Pull factors were considered as attractive conditions for tourists at the destination, such as sightseeing attractions (Park, Lee, & Miller, 2015). After collation, the pull factors in this study were divided into four dimensions as shown in Table 2.
4.2.2.1 Fun and Knowledge
30 out of 47 people mentioned fun and knowledge, they mentioned gambling and MICE as relevant local resources.
“Since the house of dancing water at City of Dreams was cancelled, my hotel switched to the Venetian during the exhibition...One of the great advantages of Macau exhibition is that it is international enough.” (P42)
4.2.2.2 Relaxing Atmosphere
The relaxing atmosphere of Macau was mentioned by 30 out of 47 people, most of them attributed this to the large number of discount coupons offered by hotels during COVID-19 period and the prices was lower than that in pre-epidemic period.
“The Taipa resorts is well-equipped with amenities and the hotel is cheap. Before our family stayed for a week in a row, eating, drinking, and playing in it, without having to run around like other places, it is really convenient.” (P31)
4.2.2.3 Local Resource
29 out of 47 people mentioned theme of local resource. Due to the relationship of "one country, two systems", the large number of duty-free goods in Macau had a strong attraction for mainland tourists.
“I think every time I go to the Venetian (integrated resort) it's quite fun ...I had access to a lot of international brands which I never heard before, and learned a lot from the process, which was also a lot of fun.” (P2)
“When I lived in Macau before, I usually went to buy wine and watches when I won money from gambling... Now I don't live there anymore, but every trip I will bring back 2 bottles of wine.” (P33)
4.2.2.4 Entertainment
Entertainment was mentioned by 28 out of 47 people, and the cheap and quality buffet in the casino was the most mentioned factor.
“The buffet in Macau casinos is really cheap and the value for money is superb compared to other restaurants. Sometimes even though I lose money on gambling, sometimes I can get free room stays and discount coupons for the buffet.” (P33)
4.2.3 Intervening Obstacles
Although push-pull theory provides a convincing model, Hsieh et al. (2012) argued that the model is not comprehensive. Therefore, he added the structure of intervening obstacle to the original foundation to stow the factors that affect the model negatively.
4.2.3.1 Free Time
24 out of 47 respondents said free time as one of the most important motivations for their trip to Macau. Interestingly, some respondents also mentioned that the expected travel time had a negative impact on the motivation to travel.
“Although Macau is not far away, it is too much work to go there and back on the same day. I would only consider going there if my vacation is long enough.” (P1)
“It's too crowded on holidays, and if you go back and forth on the same day, a lot of time is wasted on traffic, so it's not worth it.” (P33)
4.2.3.2 Household Income
13 of the 47 respondents mentioned that fluctuations in household income would affect their motivation to travel to Macau. During the process, it was found that 22 of the 32 respondents from the public sector indicated that the income growth had enhanced their motivation to travel to Macau. Among 15 respondents from private companies, 9 of them mentioned that due to fluctuations in income, Macau would not be on their shortlist of cities to visit in the near future.
“I used to go often when the market was good. Now, it's rare to travel that far.” (P41)
“Macau's spending is too high, and now vacations are more often to other more economical cities.”
(P45)
4.2.3.3 Policy
42 out of 47 respondents indicated that policy factors would dominate their motivation to travel.
This was mainly reflected in immigration and anti-corruption policies. The nucleic acid testing component of the immigration policy and the travel visa application component of the anti- corruption policy and the high-spending restriction component of the anti-corruption policy together negatively affect the travel motivation of the vast majority of public sector respondents.
“Recently, there is a very strict permit application, weddings are not a reason to be allowed to leave Mainland China, only funerals may be permitted.” (P11)
“Now the general trend is the anti-corruption policy is getting stricter and stricter, not to mention the direct access to the casino inside, even in vicinity of the casino I still a bit worried, in case someone reported me.” (P13)
5. Conclusion
5.1 Factors that Motivate Mainland China Resident Travel to Macau
Based on the in-depth interviews, four push factors were identified as joyfulness, leisure, family travel and shopping and society relation. Other four identified pull factors were fun and knowledge, relaxing atmosphere, local resource, and entertainment. However, different from Song and Witt (2006), there is not enough evidence to support that nightlife and famous tourist attractions were pull factors for mainland Chinese residents travel to Macau. This may be related to the fact that the sample in this interview traveled to Macau frequently, which in turn reduced the attractiveness of the well-known attractions and night life to the respondents.
5.2 Impact of Related Policies in Mainland China on Tourists' Travel Motivation under Anti-Corruption Policy and Household Income Changed
According to the results of content analysis, the decrease in household income in the context of COVID-19 and the relevant policies in mainland China acted as intervening obstacles. Based on previous studies, Huang et al (2012) argue that the liberalization of the mainland side of the individual visit program is a favorable policy for Macau's tourism industry. This policy has not only led to a surge in the number of mainland visitors to Macau, but also has the potentiality to increase the length of stay of visitors. However, according to the current analysis, the majority of respondents repeatedly mentioned policy factors, particularly anti-corruption, mandatory nucleic acid testing and cumbersome entry/exit visa application procedures, as negative factors that discourage travel. This contradiction with previous studies may be due to the fact that personal visit programs are no longer above the subjective expectations of outbound travelers, as they were in the past, but are considered by current respondents to be a deserved benefit for outbound travelers. In contrast, stricter entry and exit endorsement application procedures and mandatory nucleic acid testing in the context of COVID-19 were seen as obstacles which is discouraging individuals from traveling. Anti-corruption policies were repeatedly mentioned by respondents from public institute as a direct negative impact. This may due to the gradual escalation of the anti-corruption situation in recent years.
In addition, fluctuations in household income were also cited as a reason for discouraging outbound travel. Some private sector respondents said that while they did not give up holiday travel, but they tend to chose destinations that would be more economical than in the past and therefore gave up Macau. Although Lan (2021) suggested that Macau is at risk of deflation in the situation of COVID-19. According to the analysis of the present study, this phenomenon only positively affects employees in the healthcare sector, who are less affected by the promotion of household income in the context of COVID-19. However, for many respondents, they suffer from a contraction in household income. Thus, in the current study, it is considered as a intervening obstacle that hinders the motivation to travel to Macau.
5.3 Theoretical Contribution
Based on push-pull theory, a model of travel motivation was established through in-depth interview. Following a content analysis approach, 3 dimensions of push factors, pull factors and intervening obstacles were identified. The main contribution of the model is that past researchers tend to focus only on push factors, pull factors, or only on intervening obstacle.
This research agrees with them into a unified model for the first time based on push-pull theory.
It also identifies those changes in policy and household income have important effects on the
tourism motivation to Macau in background of COVID-19.
First of all, different from Huang et al. (2012) who consider individual visit policy as favorable factors. However, according to the analysis results, majority of respondents consider the factors of policies as non-favorable factors in the context of COVID-19. On the other side, Yu et al.
(2021) defined the perceived risk of infection as a negative factor of travel motivation. But in this research, there is not enough evidence that the perceived risk of infection has a negative effect on travel motivation to Macau. This may relate to Macau's excellent pandemic prevention policy and the respondents' general familiarity with Macau. Fluctuations in household income have now become a deflationary risk within Macau, but some respondents indicated that although hotel prices are lower in Macau at this stage, they would choose other more economical destinations in the future.
5.4 Recommendation to the Marketer Uplifting their Policies for Capture Arrival Chinese Visitors to Macau
The model creation process revealed the push factors and pull factors in COVID-19 background were not yet significantly different compared to their predecessors. But there is a significant obvious difference in intervening obstacles on travel motivation. Therefore, it is recommended that casino operators in Macau reduce unnecessary registration of traveler information, which may be attractive to employees who are engaged in public institutions.
Moreover, the local government in Macau should provide more convenience services to tourists and take measures to maintain the current low hotel prices. Because according to this model, these policies are important to hedge the effect of obstacle and enhance the pull factor.
5.5 Limitation and Future Research
Since most of the interviewees only come from one region in China, if the sources of interviewees could be expanded, the representativeness of interviewees for mainland Chinese tourists can be enhanced. This paper focuses on the investigation of anti-corruption factors and economic factors on the motivation of tourists to travel to Macau. Anti-corruption factors are variable based on different regions and departments. Moreover, the economic development of different regions is affected to different degrees during COVID-19 period (McKibbin &
Fernando, 2020). Because the sample size of our interview is small and all respondents originated from 3 companies. So there is no way to guarantee that each member will not be affected by other interviewees (Kitzinger & Farquhar, 1999) which will have a certain negative impact on the accuracy of the interview content. Future research directions should focus on expanding the source of the sample to allow respondents to better represent mainland Chinese tourists.
6. Acknowledgement
The project was supported by Macau Foundation.
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