Resident attendees of Macao s Drunken Dragon Festival: a cluster analysis

Purpose: The present study aims to investigate resident attendees perceptions and attitudes towards a traditional cultural festival. It further clusters the attendees and identifies the profiles of each cluster based on its demographic, attitudinal and behavioral variables. Design/methodology/approach: The Drunken Dragon Festival, a traditional cultural festival in Macao SAR, which has been embedded in the local community for about a century, is used as a case. Data collected from 378 residents on the day of the festival were factor analyzed and then grouped by using cluster analysis. Findings: A two-cluster solution revealed that the two groups, overall, had distinct demographic characteristics and had somewhat different perceptions and attitudes towards the festival. Practical implications: The results not only show the overall perceptions of the Drunken Dragon Festival among the resident attendees, but they also imply that the government and the organizers need to communicate with and involve the two resident attendee clusters differently. Originality/value: This study is one of the first attempts to investigate the residents attitudes towards the transformational development of a traditional cultural festival as an effort to ensure the viability of intangible cultural heritage and to utilize it as a tourism resource.