Macau has developed its tourism sector when there was a rapid growth on the gaming industry since the 70s. However, there is no longer a comprehensive tourism planning at that time. It was until 1980s, the Portuguese government has tried to preserve the cultural influence over Macau after 1999. By preserving the mixture of Eastern and Western cultures in Macau, it paved the way for the development of cultural tourism in Macau. Nowadays, the development of cultural heritage tourism is significantly successful. The culture of Macau is not merely gaming but the East-West cultural pluralism. Its successfulness in preserving the cultural heritage can be clearly shown when Macao’s Heritage (“The Historic Centre of Macao”) has features on World Heritage List in 2005. This highly facilitated the development of Macau’s Cultural Heritage Tourism. In this report, the development and management of Macau’s cultural heritage tourism will be examined.
1. Introduction
Cultural tourism is type of tourism which is one of the largest and fastest growing segments of global tourism. People usually travel with special interest in order to gain a deep understand about the culture of the destinations. Under the purview of cultural tourism, heritage tourism is one of the most widespread and notable types of tourism. Every year, there are around hundreds of million of people to involve in the heritage tourism. (Dallen and Stephen, 2006, pp. 2) In the destination which has joined the World Heritage List, it is particularly attractive for the urban heritage tourist to visit.
In July 2005, Macau’s Historic Centre World Heritage Site has joined the World Heritage List. As a Special Administrative Region (SAR) within China, Macao is a good example to examine the successfulness of its development on heritage tourism in China and whether it is well-managed. In this report, successfulness of developing heritage tourism in Macao will be discussed. In-field investigations and