Importance of service elements among Chinese gamblers visiting Macau

Casino gaming is a common form of entertainment in many countries, and the casino gaming industry worldwide is expanding at a rapid pace (Lee et al., 2006). Macau is one of the main locations of the gaming industry in East/Southeast Asia, and is a key part of the economy in Macau. The gaming industry accounted for 83 percent of tax revenue in 2010 (Macau FSB 2011), and also accounted for 14 about percent of Macau’s total employment (Macau DSEC 2008). However, while the industry is thriving, it is a very competitive environment, and individual casinos need to understand their well to attract customers.We specifically examined the importance of various service elements among casino goers visiting Macau from Hong Kong and mainland China. This sort of information is critical in making decisions about details of the marketing mix for various segments (e.g., Wind & Bell 2007). Rϋck & Mende (2008) recommend more extensive use of segmentation analysis in the tourism industry. In this spirit, here we examine importance by home of the visitor (HK, China), marital status, and age, although this is only the preliminary step toward more detailed segmentation analysis.Respondents were asked about what attributes were important in their decision to visit one casino over another. The twenty attributes were mostly taken from Shoemaker and Zemke (2005), with slight adaptation and a few additional questions to reflect Macao’s unique situation. For example, one question asks about the transportation link between Macau’s ferry port or the border gate to different casinos. Questions used a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (highly unimportant) to 5 (highly important). The questionnaire was designed in Chinese, and tested in a small pilot of eight casino players to check the relevance and clarity of the questions. On average, respondents took 10 minutes to complete the questionnaire and reported no problems understanding it, so that no changes were required. The main survey was administered in July 2010 in face-to-face interviews with Chinese gamblers through convenience sampling outside ten large casinos. Twenty University of Macau students who were fluent in both Cantonese and Mandarin conducted the interviews. The researchers provided training and on-site demonstration of conducting the interview, and supervised the fieldwork. A total of 371 completed questionnaires were collected, 168 Hong Kong Chinese, and 203 mainland Chinese. (There were also 29 Taiwan