Intracultural differences in dining behavior and preferences among Hong Kong and Taiwan tourists

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the perceptions by owners and staff working in causal full-service restaurants in Macao of their two major subcultures of customers: Hong Kong Chinese and Taiwan Chinese in terms of their dining behavior and preferences. Design/methodology/approach Face-to-face interviews with 36 service staff of casual dining restaurants in Macao were conducted through the purposive convenience sampling method. Thematic content analysis was conducted in the data analysis. Findings The results reveal that although the customers from the two Chinese subcultures have a similar appearance, use the same Chinese characters and share common cultural inheritances; their dining behavior and preferences are perceived as being different. Practical implications Practical implications are given on how to better design the products and services to meet each subgroup’s needs for enhancing customers’ experience and service quality in restaurant settings. Originality/value This study focuses on examining if there are any sub-cultural differences in food behaviors and preferences among Hong Kong and Taiwan visitors, who are the major tourist sources in the world market. It contributes to the scarce literature on intracultural dining variances of sub-groups within Chinese.