Tourism | IFT survey shows improvement in tourist satisfaction

The Macau Tourist Satisfaction Index report for the first quarter of 2016 was released last week by the Tourism Research Center of the Institute of Tourism Studies (IFT), showing an improvement in tourist satisfaction.
The report showed that the overall tourism satisfaction score, which in the previous quarter fell to its second lowest point since the survey began in 2009, has made a recovery.
The overall score has recovered to 69.6 out of the maximum 100 points, up from 67.8 in the fourth quarter of 2015.
According to the report, the overall score is a composite rating of ten tourism-related sectors in the city, namely casinos, events, heritage attractions, non-heritage attractions, hotels, restaurants, retail, transportation, tour guide services and immigration services.
In the first quarter survey, events scored the most favorably in terms of satisfaction at 78.9 points, while heritage attractions brought down the average, scoring just 63.6 out of 100.
The survey also sheds some light on the purpose of tourists in visiting the MSAR. Among the popular reasons were shopping (25.9 percent), cuisine (25.3 percent) and World Heritage attractions (18.4 percent). Meanwhile, gaming only accounted for about 10 percent.
The total number of respondents in the first quarter survey was 1,067 with the vast majority coming from the greater China region. By area, those from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan amounted to 68.5 percent, 22.9 percent and 5.5 percent respectively.
Additionally, most visitors from Hong Kong and more than half from mainland China were not first-
time visitors, while most of the tourists from overseas indicated that this was their first visit to Macau.
More than nine in every 10 tourists surveyed said that they visited Macau as individual travelers, while the remaining 9.3 percent said that they were part of a tour group.