In the light of the statistics which show that many Macao residents travel independently to Mainland China
(47%) and Hong Kong (20%) in 2011 for vacation (Statistics and Census Bureau, 2011b), it is believed that the Chinese
immigrants’ homeland visit to Mainland China and Hong Kong is a key reason for such a significant tourism flow to
Mainland China and Hong Kong in addition to geographical convenience. To examine whether the Chinese immigrants
from Mainland China and Hong Kong enjoy visiting their homeland, this study is conducted to explore the demand of
Chinese immigrants for homeland visit.
METHODOLOGY
A quantitative survey method was applied to this study with a sample of total 500 valid respondents. The survey
was conducted with a face-to-face person-administered method. The target population was the Chinese immigrants from
Mainland China and other Asian countries, who are currently living in Macao. Qualified respondents were recruited from
eight local institutes in Macao which mainly serve immigrants. In each institute, all qualified target respondents were
invited to participate in the survey interview through the contact person of the institute. Only the volunteers of the target
population were recruited and interviewed. The questionnaire was designed in Chinese and covering questions of
demographic information, travel motivation, and travel patterns. A 5-point Likert scale was used to measure travel
motivation (1 = disagree, 5 = strongly agree). The items of travel motives measured in the survey questionnaire were
developed from the focus group interview with ten Chinese immigrants in Macao and literature review. Three survey
interviewers were recruited and trained before they conducted the survey.
ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
The sample is made up of 2.4 percent respondents emigrated from Hong Kong, 8.4 percent respondents from
other Asian countries, and 89.2 percent respondents from Mainland China. The biggest group of the sample accounts for
61.6 percent emigrated from the Canton province of Mainland China where is very near Macao.
As shown in Table 1, respondents who had lived longer time in their homeland tended to visit their homeland
last year more often than those who had lived shorter time in their homeland. The results suggest that immigrants who
have a stronger root in their homeland before migration tend to have a closer tie with their homeland after migration.
Besides, of the sample of 500 respondents, only 22.8 percent respondents did not visit their homeland last year, and these
22.8 percent respondents have been living in Macao for 310 months on average. Comparatively, other respondents who
had visited their homeland last year had a shorter length of living in Macao. Since the minimal average length of living in
Macao for respondents is 231 months, the figure suggests that the Chinese immigrants tend to visit their homeland
regularly or occasionally even after a long time living in Macao.
TABLE 1
MEAN ANALYSIS BY ANOVA AND T TEST OVER THE LENGTH OF
LIVING HOMELAND/MACAO AND THE FREQUENCY OF HOMELAND VISIT
N
Mean (in
month)
Std.
Deviation F Sig.
Length of living
in homeland
Length of living
in Macao
Frequency of
homeland visit
>5 times 150 275.09 154.753
2-4 times 146 268.24 162.751
0-1 time 204 235.01 161.019
Total 500 256.74 160.400
Did you visit
your homeland
last year?
yes 386 230.75 163.108
no 114 310.18 189.306
3.258 .039
-4.398 (t
value)
0.00 (2-
tailed)