TY - JOUR KW - Cluster analysis KW - Drunken dragon festival KW - Resident attitude KW - Resident perception KW - Traditional cultural festival AU - Suh-hee Choi AU - Ubaldino Couto AU - Sharif Imon AB - 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. DO - 10.1108/IJEFM-12-2019-0062 M1 - 3 N1 - Publisher: Emerald Group Holdings Ltd. N2 - 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. SP - 375 EP - 393 TI - Resident attendees of Macao s Drunken Dragon Festival: a cluster analysis UR - https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85086774462&doi=10.1108%2fIJEFM-12-2019-0062&partnerID=40&md5=94d6670207e56bf7c4e0a10c7dfa03dc VL - 11 SN - 17582954 (ISSN) ER -