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An investigation of the influence ofheritage tourism on local people'ssense of place: the Macau youth'sexperienceLouis Tze-Ngai Vongaa Institute for Tourism Studies, Colina de Mong-Ha, Macau,People's Republic of ChinaPublished online: 17 Apr 2013.

To cite this article: Louis Tze-Ngai Vong (2013) An investigation of the influence of heritagetourism on local people's sense of place: the Macau youth's experience, Journal of HeritageTourism, 8:4, 292-302, DOI: 10.1080/1743873X.2013.787084

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An investigation of the inuence of heritage tourism on local peoplessense of place: the Macau youths experience

Louis Tze-Ngai Vong

Institute for Tourism Studies, Colina de Mong-Ha, Macau, Peoples Republic of China

(Received 10 December 2012; nal version received 11 March 2013)

With Macau making inroads into heritage tourism, Macau people are given a push torediscover the citys heritage values. This renewed sense of appreciation has affordedlocals across all levels of society a new perspective of their homeland. As such, withheritage tourism continuing to blossom in a heritage-minded society, inhabitantssense of place (SOP) may be affected accordingly. Although tourism researchliterature does not lack timely discussions of Macaus heritage tourism, no studies todate have effectively explored the inuence of heritage tourism on Macau peoplesSOP. Owing to this, the present study aims to investigate the inuence of heritagetourism on SOP among young people in Macau.

Keywords: Macau; sense of place; world legacy

Introduction

Host to the 31st designated UNESCO heritage site in China, Macau had high hopes to useits cultural heritage to convince the world that it is a city of culture instead of merely aheaven for hard-core gambling (Tieben, 2009). In this regard, some success has beennoted. In a study which aimed to prole the roles and motives of tourists visiting Macau,Lam and Vong (2009) found that tourists were very much eager to get a taste of Macausworld legacy besides casino gambling. To meet growing tourist interest in Macaushistory and culture, Mok (2011) noted that Macau government has revisited its heritageconservation policy, setting preservation priorities and improving on-site heritage interpret-ation. Besides, local authorities like Macau Cultural Bureau have also partnered with heri-tage-minded associations in delivering heritage education programs to raise communityawareness of heritage conservation. This whole community approach in building heritageawareness has elevated local peoples interest of cultural heritage meanwhile affording thecity an opportunity to promote heritage tourism. For instance, the government-sponsoredheritage ambassadors training program has equipped interested citizens with fundamentalknowledge about Macaus heritage properties (Cheng, 2007). These trained individuals,called heritage ambassadors, will then assume the role of heritage curator at specic heri-tage sites. From a different perspective, with increased opportunity to understand andappreciate the citys historic, architectural, and cultural heritage, Macau people may beinspired to perceive their hometown differently. More specically speaking, with heritage

# 2013 Taylor & Francis

Email: louis@ift.edu.mo

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tourism continuing to blossom in a heritage-minded community, the city of Macau mayafford its people a very distinct sense of place (SOP). In this regard, young peoplesperspective is especially important because young people are the ones who are responsibleto inherit the traditions and cultures of Macau, Ms. Pearl Chao, the president of MacauHeritage Ambassadors Association (MHAA) was quoted as saying (Ambassadors Associ-ation (MHAA): Heritage awareness must be built up, 2010). Similarly, McCartney andNadkarni (2004, p. 51) stated that the views and attitudes of young people in Macaushould be attended to because they would determine and shape Macaos future legacyand the success of cultural and heritage preservation. Although research literature doesnot lack timely discussions of Macaus heritage tourism (Dewar, du Cros, & Li, 2012;Ung & Vong, 2010; Vong & Ung, 2012; Wan & Cheng, 2011), no studies have endeavoredto explore heritage tourisms inuence on Macau youths SOP. Owing to this, the objectiveof this study is to investigate heritage tourisms inuence on SOP among young people inMacau.

Heritage, tourism, and residents SOP

In recent years, a lot has been written about heritage and SOP, and the discussions haverevolved around understanding their theoretical connection. Smith (2006) noted that heri-tage does not merely represent past experiences but also affect current experiences andshape the way we see the world. Because of this, a heritage place may represent orstand in for a sense of identity and belonging for particular individuals or groups(Smith, 2006, p. 77). Similarly, drawing on the views of practitioners in heritage resourcemanagement, Schoeld and Szymanski (2010) showed how cultural heritage has a markedeffect on the development of SOP. Fairclough (2010) echoed this idea by encouraging aca-demia to explore ways in which sense(s) of place can be discovered, invented, promoted,and used through effective heritage management. No wonder it is said that heritagedenes sense of place (Department of the Environment and Heritage, Australia, 2001).Although Hawke (2010) criticized that the link between heritage and SOP is only a relation-ship tacitly accepted and little discussed in the literature, research progress in recent yearshas indicated a theoretical connection between them. For example, in a study examining therelationship between people and place in Taiwan, Davis, Huang, and Liu (2008) found thatcommunities tended to leverage their cultural heritage to build local identities, maintaincommunity sustainability, and provide a SOP to local people. Similarly, Hawkes (2010)study which examined heritages contribution to SOP in the rural Northern Upland ofthe UK, has shown that cultural heritage underpinned self-esteem, distinctiveness, andcontinuity over time, all of which have marked effects on the construction of place identity(Breakwell, 1992). In another empirical study that explored the relationship betweenhistoric environment and residents SOP, Davies, Whimster, and Clayton (2009) uncoveredthat adults who lived in areas of higher concentrations of historic environment were morelikely to have a stronger SOP. Moreover, young people interested in historic environmentwere also more likely to develop a stronger SOP. Overall, the study concluded that historicenvironment had a signicant and positive relationship to locals SOP.

The link between inhabitants SOP and tourism has also received some scholarly atten-tion. Weaver and Lawton (2002) stated that destinations pursuing aggressive tourism strat-egy might threaten the traditional meaning of a place, thus causing inhabitants to reexaminetheir feelings and connections with the place. Similarly, Shackel (2005, p. 24) called upontourism-dependent communities to defend local identity and a SOP through recovery,interpretation, and the celebration of the past. In pursuance of sustainable tourism,

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Binder (2008) noted that inhabitants SOP is critical in sustaining host communities, cul-tural sites, and tourist destinations. In essence, Binder (2008) asserted that SOP andtourism development must be mutually enhancing for the long-term viability of tourismdestinations. The common thread among these scholarly comments is the realization thattourism development does play a role in affecting inhabitants perceptions of their livingenvironment.

Sense of place

SOP is not easy to elucidate as it connotes an elusive or vague concept. Williams andSteward (1998, p. 19) suggested us to think of it as the collection of meanings, beliefs,symbols, values, and feelings that individuals and groups associate with a particularlocality. Similarly, Stedman (2002, p. 563) conceived SOP as a collection of symbolicmeanings, attachment, and satisfaction with a spatial setting held by an individual orgroup. Jackson (1984, 1994) noted that the phrase sense of place is used not only todescribe the atmosphere of a place or the quality of the environment, but it also impliesa specialness that is related to rituals whereby many places are more signicant inmodern times because of the time people spent in those places rather than the distinctivefeatures afforded by those places. Owing to its all-encompassing qualities, many scholarshave chosen to operationalize the construct multidimensionally (Bott, 2000; Jorgensen &Stedman, 2001, 2006; Nanzer, 2004; Stedman, 2002). For example, Stedman (2002) oper-ationalized SOP to comprise place meanings, place attachment, and place satisfaction. Bott(2000) developed an original, multi-item psychometric scale to measure SOP. The scalecomprised four specic domains, namely the natural-setting domains, the cultural-settingdomains, the affective individual/personal domain, and the functional individual/personaldomain. Although Bott (2000) had followed the mainstream approach in operationalizingSOP multidimensionally, the dimensions she developed were diversely different from theother scholarly studies in the quantitative SOP research. That said, the work of Jorgensenand Stedman (2001) was considered as a landmark study in positivist SOP research. Havingreviewed extensively on the topic, Jorgensen and Stedman (2001) operationalized SOP ascomprising three dimensions, namely place attachment, place identity, and place depen-dence. Accordingly, they developed and validated a 12-item SOP scale with a sample oflakeshore property owners in northern Wisconsin. This multi-item SOP scale (Jorgensen& Stedman, 2001) was later adapted by Nanzer (2004) in his study of Michigan residentsSOP. With minor modications to the original SOP scale, Nanzer (2004) afrmed thatJorgensen and Stedmans (2001) SOP scale was highly reliable in assessing the construct.

Methodology

A convenience sampling approach using questionnaire survey was adopted for the presentstudy. In order to reduce bias arising from this non-probability sampling method such ashaving collected a sample from the same residential district, interviewers were assignedto different densely populated neighborhoods whereby they would reach out to the targetpopulation using mall-intercept interviewing technique. Since the target population ofthis study was Macau youth, and UNESCO has dened youth as persons between theages of 15 and 24, interviewers would have to identify potential candidates who seemedto belong to this specic age cohort and then invite them for interview. As soon as a poten-tial candidate showed acceptance to participate in the survey, a preliminary screening ques-tion Are you in the age bracket 1524? was asked to conrm if the candidate had met

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the age requirement for the study. If afrmative, the interviewer would proceed to admin-ister the survey which required the respondent to complete a three-page close-ended ques-tionnaire with the assistance of the interviewer. As a short note, the questionnaire wasoriginally developed in the English language but was translated into Chinese to facilitatethe interview process. Back translation was used to afrm the accuracy of the Chinese ques-tionnaire before it was used for data collection. Having said so, this close-ended question-naire was composed of three sections: Section One included a 12-item SOP scale (using5-point rating scale with 1 very disagree, 5 very agree) aimed to assess respondentsSOP intensity (see Table 3). The construction of this SOP scale was largely based on thework of Jorgensen and Stedman (2001) with minor modications to the scale to t theMacau context. Also included in this section of the questionnaire was a set of fourbipolar adjective pairs (based on a 7-point rating scale) used to assess respondents attitudesof heritage conservation vis-a`-vis urban development (see Table 2). These adjective pairsepitomized the dilemma of choice facing many developing nations or cities, i.e. thechoice between heritage preservation and urban change (Li, 2003). In Section Twoof the questionnaire, a checklist of 10 evaluative items (using 5-point rating scale with1 very disagree, 5 very agree) was used to evaluate the perceived inuence of heritagetourism in Macau (see Table 4). In order to emphasize the specialness of heritage tourism,the checklist has specically included the kinds of inuence that are highly likely to arisebecause of heritage tourism. For example, the evaluative statement To help preserve his-toric and cultural heritage is a likely occurrence triggered by the development of heritagetourism. As such, the items in this checklist were either drawn from scholarly references(McKercher & du Cros, 2002; Richards, 2007) or developed by the investigator to t theMacau situation. Finally, Section Three of the questionnaire solicited respondents back-ground information including gender, place of birth, income level, education, andoccupation.

Findings

The study successfully interviewed 156 Macau youth-respondents aged 1524. Table 1shows the demographic characteristics of the sample. As expected, a majority of respon-dents (92.9%) were students and they were earning an income level anywhere in therange below MOP 5000. This nding is congruent with the prevalent reality of Macausociety in which many full-time students from high schools to colleges and universitieshave earned their pocket money by doing part-time or causal work. Although the samplehas suffered from oversampling female youth (66.7%), this study is predominantlyfocused on understanding the perceptions of Macau youth as a distinct category ofMacau population. In this sense, even though the sample is skewed toward youngfemales in Macau, it can still provide relevant and useful information for the problem athand. Moreover, as a precautionary measure against making gender-related claims with asample of skewed sex ratio, this study has avoided analyzing the data from a gender-differ-ence perspective. Based on what has been said, it hopes to alleviate the concerns with regardto the disproportionate representation of the sexes in the sample. Having said so, it is see-mingly clear that the youth respondents in this study had demonstrated a positive attitudetoward preserving the citys heritage resources. This can be seen in the way they respondedto the bipolar adjective pairs (see Table 2). As indicated in Table 2, respondents tended totilt toward protecting their cultural resources instead of embracing urban development ifsuch development requires sacrices to the citys cultural landscape. To exemplify, respon-dents considered it more important to maintain the world heritage site (WHS) status even

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if doing so may restraint urban development (mean 3.63). Similarly, they were alsomore keen to preserve the citys historic and cultural landscape instead of accommodatingto the needs of modern architecture (mean 3.80). Similarly, they also welcomed Macauto host more cultural events to consolidate its image as a city of culture. All told, respon-dents in this study seemed to pride themselves on Macaus cultural treasure and feel reluc-tant to support any proposal that may have detrimental effects on Macaus status as a worldheritage city.

Next, Table 3 shows respondents SOP assessment. Specically speaking, the twelveattitudinal statements represented three sets of 4-item scales, each responsible for measuringone sub-construct of SOP, namely place attachment, place identity, and place dependence.To determine the reliability of these scales, the Cronbachs coefcient alpha for each scalewas estimated to which all the scales had demonstrated satisfactory alpha scores ranging

Table 1. Descriptive data.

Composition N %

GenderMale 52 33.3Female 104 66.7Born in MacauYes 139 89.1No 17 10.9EducationPrimary 1 0.6Junior secondary 2 1.3Senior secondary 142 91.0University 11 7.1Income (MOP),5000 142 91.050019000 10 6.4900113,000 3 1.913,00117,000 1 0.6OccupationSupervisory level and above 1 0.6Rank and le worker 3 1.9Professional 2 1.3Student 145 92.9Others 5 3.1

Table 2. Residents attitudes of heritage awareness vis-a`-vis urban development.

Bipolaradjectives Mean

Std.dev.

Protect cultureheritage

(1)(7) Urban development takes precedence overheritage protection

3.89 2.06

Preserve culturallandscape

(1)(7) Replacing age-old buildings with modernarchitecture

3.80 2.14

Increase culturalevents

(1)(7) No need to increase cultural events 3.63 1.89

Macau to maintainWHS status

(1)(7) Macau to absolve WHS status if urbandevelopment demands so

3.63 2.33

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from 0.80 to 0.86 (Hair, Anderson, Tatham, & Black, 1998). This shows that the scales werereliable measures of their respective constructs. That said, respondents had shown relativelystronger place attachment (mean 3.66) and place identity (mean 3.48) than placedependence (mean 2.99). Taken together, the SOP score for the entire sample was3.38. From a different perspective, this composite mean value reects the SOP intensityin which a larger mean value (i.e. a larger SOP score) corresponds to a strongerSOP caused by stronger feelings of attachment, identity, and dependence on Macau.Table 4 summarizes the perceived inuence of heritage tourism in Macau. As one cansee, respondents generally agreed that the development of this special interest tourismhad affected Macau in different ways. For instance, they tended to agree more with thenotion that cultural exchange opportunity was made available because of heritagetourism (mean 3.87). Similarly, they also considered heritage tourism to have elevatedMacau as an international city (mean 3.61), and for this matter, they were proud ofMacaus achievement (mean 3.67).

Table 3. Macau youths SOP.

Mean Std. dev. Alpha score

Place attachment 3.66 0.66 0.80I am happy living in Macau 3.85 0.80I would like to live in Macau for a long time 3.60 0.86I feel relaxed when I am in Macau 3.75 0.85I really miss Macau when I am away from it for too long 3.42 0.85

Place identity 3.48 0.68 0.86I feel that Macau is a part of me 3.47 0.82I identify strongly with Macau 3.38 0.74Macau is very special to me 3.58 0.83Macau means a lot to me 3.51 0.83

Place dependence 2.99 0.71 0.86Macau is the best place for what I like to do 3.10 0.88Doing what I do in Macau is more important to me thandoing it in any other place

3.13 0.76

I would not substitute any other place for doing thetypes of things I do in Macau

2.93 0.90

For what I like to do, no other place can compare to Macau 2.79 0.87SOP 3.38 0.90

Table 4. The perceived inuence of heritage tourism in Macau society.

Mean Std. dev.

To provide cultural exchange opportunity 3.87 0.61To increase resident self-esteem 3.67 0.69To elevate Macau as an international city 3.61 0.78To stimulate demand for exhibitions on local history and culture 3.62 0.81To sustain Macaus social-cultural environment 3.53 0.98To promote social harmony in the local community 3.35 0.88To maintain community cohesiveness 3.50 0.92To arouse local peoples interest in local cultural activities 3.46 0.81To keep the traditional way of life alive 3.69 0.93To help preserve historic and cultural heritage 3.39 1.05

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In order to reveal any underlying structure(s) among this pool of measurement items,principle component factor analysis with varimax rotation was used to extract commonfactors that could be used to support further in-depth analysis (see Table 5). As such, theanalysis yielded a three-factor structure which explained 58.19% of the total variance.Although the cumulative variance of this three-factor solution falls a bit behind the rec-ommended threshold value of 60% (Hair et al., 1998), there exists no absolute thresholdvalue in dictating the use of factor analysis in social science research (Hooper, 2012). More-over, the KaiserMeyerOklin (KMO 0.733), the Bartlett test (p , 0.05), and thefactors eigenvalues had all indicated that this three-factor solution was acceptable (Hairet al., 1998). Because of this, the investigator decided to retain this three-factor solutionfor subsequent analysis. That said, factor one (F1) included four measurement items,namely To provide cultural exchange opportunity, To increase resident self-esteem,To elevate Macau as an international city, and To stimulate demand for exhibitions onlocal history and culture. Taken together, these items seemed to epitomize communitypride in celebrating local culture and history. Because of this, F1 was denoted as commu-nity pride and celebration of cultures. Factor two (F2) was made up of three other measure-ment items which included To sustain Macaus social-cultural environment, To maintaincommunity cohesiveness, and To help preserve historic and cultural heritage. Since theyaddressed issues relating to heritage conservation and the need to safeguard the sustainabledevelopment in societies, F2 was therefore named as sustainability of social life and heri-tage protection. Finally, factor three (F3) was interpreted as promotion of cultural inheri-tance because the items To promote social harmony in local community, To keep thetraditional way of life alive, and To arouse local peoples interest in local cultural activi-ties addressed the importance of cultural integrity. Subsequently, Cronbachs alphareliability analysis was conducted to examine factor reliabilities. As expected, all thethree factors had alpha scores well above 0.5, which is the minimum value accepted forreliability analysis (Hair et al., 1998). As such, this three-factor solution was accepted as

Table 5. Factor analysis of perceived inuence of heritage tourism in Macau.

Factor Loading

Measurement items Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3

Community pride and celebration of cultures (F1)To provide cultural exchange opportunity 0.718To increase resident self-esteem 0.765To elevate Macau as an international city 0.746To stimulate demand for exhibitions on local history and culture 0.621Sustainability of social life and heritage protection (F2)To sustain Macaus socio-cultural environment 0.760To maintain community cohesiveness 0.774To help preserve historic and cultural heritage 0.775Promotion of cultural inheritance (F3)To promote social harmony in local community 0.746To arouse local peoples interest in local cultural activities 0.814To keep the traditional way of life alive 0.583Eigenvalue 2.974 1.821 1.025Variance (%) 29.737 18.207 10.248Cumulative variance (%) 29.737 47.944 58.192Reliability alpha (%) 70.8 68.1 60.0Number of items (total 10) 4 3 3

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adequately reliable in describing the inuence of heritage tourism in Macau as perceivedby Macau youth. To take a closer look, community pride and celebration of culturesseemingly constitutes the type of inuence that buttresses Macau as a renowned tourismdestination that is proud of its cultural offerings. On the other hand, sustainability ofsocial life and heritage protection conveys the need to keep the things the way theypresently are an idea that is very much in line with heritage conservation and protection.In other words, heritage tourism is credited for keeping existing ways of life unchanged.Finally, promotion of cultural inheritance functions to enliven the traditions andcustoms of Macau in the hope that Macau heritage can be passed down from generationto generation. Where these different types of inuence work together, Macau seems tomove along a stable yet progressive path of heritage tourism development.

Because this study posited that the development of heritage tourism could allow localpeople to develop a renewed SOP through rediscovering their connection to the past, itbecomes imperative to examine if this hypothesized relationship holds true. This can beachieved by examining how the three-factor solution relates to respondents SOP assess-ments. Accordingly, the study conducted a bivariate correlation analysis between thethree uncovered factors (using raw factor scores) and respondents SOP scores. Table 6shows that two out of three factors had correlated signicantly and positively with theSOP scores. These two factors were community pride and celebration of cultures and pro-motion of cultural inheritance. This implies that these two factors have a role in affectingrespondents SOP. To take one step forward in the analysis, the study conducted multipleregression analysis to examine how these factors predict respondents SOP. As shown inTable 7, the result of multiple regression analysis indicated that both community prideand celebration of cultures and promotion of cultural inheritance were signicant andpositive predictors of SOP (F 15.003, p , 0.05). Between them, community prideand celebration of cultures (B 0.405) was a much stronger predictor than promotionof cultural inheritance (B 0.237). A plausible explanation of the ndings may lie inthe fact that these two factors represent the type of inuences that are very much atten-tion-grabbing; hence they are more able to invoke residents SOP. To exemplify, rising

Table 6. Pearson product-moment coefcients between SOP and the three factors of perceivedinuence of heritage tourism in Macau.

Pearsons coefcients (r)

SOP: community pride and celebration of cultures 0.405SOP: Sustainability of social life and heritage protection 0.092SOP: Promotion of cultural inheritance 0.237

Signicant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed).

Table 7. Multiple regression results perceived inuence of heritage tourism and SOP.

Perceived inuence of heritage tourism in Macau B Beta t Sig.

F1: community pride and celebration of cultures 2.770 0.405 5.683 0.000F2: Sustainability of social life and heritage protection 0.631 0.092 1.294 0.198F3: Promotion of cultural inheritance 1.619 0.237 3.312 0.001

F 15.003, p , 0.05 R2 0.228Signicant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed).

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international status, putting the citys cultural heritage on display, and celebrating localcustoms and traditions have all constituted the kind of changes that are palpable and notice-able to Macau people. By comparison, the inuence afforded by sustainability of social lifeand heritage protection may be seen as unnoticeable because this factor is basically rein-forcing the existing ways of life unchanged in Macau society. This may help explain whythe correlation coefcient between SOP and sustainability of social life and heritage pro-tection is positive but non-signicant (r 0.092).

Conclusion

This study has provided empirical support indicating the role of heritage tourism in affect-ing local peoples SOP. Although studies of a similar nature have been well-documented intourism research literature, this is the rst study of its kind to be carried out in Macau. As anAsian city with a rich colonial legacy, Macau has always pride itself for its cultural diversity.The advent of heritage tourism in recent years has further provided increased opportunityfor locals across all levels of society to appreciate the cultural richness embedded in theirheritage assets. Due to its exploratory nature, this study has limited its scope by investi-gating heritage tourisms inuence on Macau youths SOP. However, the positive ndingsin this study may shed some light on the plausibility of implementing a large, population-based study with similar focus. Predictably, this can enhance our understanding of Macauresidents changing SOP amid the development of this special interest tourism. Alterna-tively, this study has also provided a platform for the undertaking of further theoreticaland empirical research in different research directions. For example, in view that SOPcan be shared or contested (Are, 1999), it will be interesting to examine how the coexis-tence of two seemingly incompatible concepts of gambling and heritage in Macau are tocompete for, or shape, the locals very SOP. Although the story of Macau has been reportedextensively, surprisingly there remains a complete lack of discussions about Macau resi-dents SOP amid tourism development. Owing to this, the present study has provided anew breath to investigate the inuence of heritage tourism in Macau through the prismof human geographers. It has also provided a clear benchmark for further studies.

Notes on contributorLouis Tze-Ngai Vong, holds a full-time teaching position at the Institute for Tourism Studies, Macau(IFT). He received his PhD from the department of Geography at the University of Hong Kong.

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