ABSTRACT
With China’s economy barreling ahead of the world with 8%–10%increase in gross domestic product (GDP) for more than 2 decades, Chinese are getting affluent and hence, are increasingly demanding to travel outside of the country, like never before. Although there are signs that the country’s economy is slowing down in the past year or so to about 7.5%, it does not seem to affect Chinese travel behaviors significantly. Because Chinese are known to enjoy gambling, while the Mainland Chinese Central government prohibits all forms of gambling except lottery, it creates a huge gap between supply and demand. The imbalance between the 2 sides compels Chinese to travel outbound and fulfill an array of their travel needs in gaming destinations. In fact, to fulfill the unmet needs for gambling and casino travel, many countries, especially those in the Asia Pacific region, are legalizing gambling or expanding their presence in gambling in an effort to take advantage of this unprecedented golden opportunity. The world gambling capital, Macau, for example, has seen its economy take off since its liberalization of the casino industry in the early 2000s, and it generated US$45.2 billion gaming revenue in 2013 (7 times that of the entire gaming revenue of Las Vegas). It welcomed about 30 million tourists, over 90% of them being Chinese. Although only around 8% of tourists in the city reported that their primary travel purpose is gambling (Macau Statistics and Census Service, 2013), the author’s recent studies suggest that a huge number of tourists flock to Macau to experience casinos-much like other attractions, with gambling just a part of this travel experience (Wong and Rosenbaum, 2012).
