Investigating tourists’ casino retention: cross-cultural comparison with Chinese and Westerners

Abstract Gaining an understanding of cross-cultural nuances is critical for casino managers who work with international tourists. Market strategies can be wildly divergent based upon the service and quality perceptions that different consumers generate based upon the cultural lens in which they experience the casino’s offering. This study had two main purposes: 1) to develop and test an integrated tourist behavior model which include a range of interrelationships, including tourist push and pull motivations, perceived core and peripheral service quality, and casino retention, of Chinese and Western tourists in Macau; and 2) to investigate the moderating effect of cultural background on the hypothesized relationships in the structural model. The results identified significant interrelationships—among push and pull motivations, and perceived core and peripheral service quality—that played concurrent positive roles in determining retention. In addition, the moderating effects of cultural background on the hypothesized relationships in the structural model showed that - the effect of the push motivation on the perceived core service quality was stronger in the Western group than Chinese group; The effect of the pull motivation on the perceived peripheral service quality was stronger in the Chinese group than Western group; The effect of the perceived core service quality on the casino retention was stronger in the Chinese group than Western group. Theoretical and managerial implications were discussed.