{"id":5640,"date":"2020-03-03T15:08:24","date_gmt":"2020-03-03T07:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.ift.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/?p=5640"},"modified":"2020-03-03T15:26:07","modified_gmt":"2020-03-03T07:26:07","slug":"do-tourists-find-smoking-restrictions-unwelcoming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/do-tourists-find-smoking-restrictions-unwelcoming\/","title":{"rendered":"Do tourists find smoking restrictions unwelcoming?"},"content":{"rendered":"\u4e2d\u6587\u6458\u8981 \/ Summary in Chinese<\/span>\n

A study by 2 scholars from IFTM has concluded that \u201cpast behaviour\u201d \u2013 a reference to smoking-control rules in a person\u2019s place of origin \u2013 has a strong impact upon a smoker\u2019s intention to puff on a cigarette in public indoor areas while in Macao as a tourist.<\/p>\n

Another factor found to have a strong impact upon visitors\u2019 intention to smoke in public indoor areas is \u201cattitude\u201d, state IFTM researchers Dr. Cindia Lam and Mr. Billy Im. The attitude factor refers to how visitors perceive their act of smoking in public indoor areas while visiting the city, namely either in a positive or negative way.<\/p>\n

The comments \u2013 featured in the paper \u201cTourist floods, GDP rockets, the government intervenes: smoking ordinance and its implementation\u201d \u2013 were published last year in the Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events.<\/p>\n

The main objective of the study was to examine the tobacco consumption behaviour of tourists who self-identified as smokers. The researchers point out that as Macao authorities continue to tighten smoking regulations in the city \u2013 by restricting the consumption of cigarettes in outdoor and indoor areas open to the public \u2013 it is relevant to gather insight on the smoking behaviour of tourists.<\/p>\n

Macao\u2019s revision of its smoking-control regulations has primarily been driven by the growth in the number of tourist smokers, the researchers note. Under the intensive pace of implementation of increasingly stringent rules, the Macao Government and the business sector have expressed controversial views on the impact of such measures in relation to tourism, add Dr. Lam and Mr. Im.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo balance the interests of smoking tourists, non-smoking tourists, local service operators and employees, it is critical to understand the behaviour of smoking tourists, so as to offer insights in shaping their smoking behaviour,\u201d the authors state.<\/p>\n

The IFTM researchers point out that the impact of smoking-control rules on tourists is of particular relevance to Macao as the city\u2019s economy relies mostly on tourism. In addition, about 70 percent of Macao\u2019s 30-million-plus annual tourist arrivals are generated from Mainland China, home to the world\u2019s largest population of smokers \u2013 at around 315 million individuals as of 2015, according to the World Health Organization.<\/p>\n

Changing attitudes concerning smoking<\/strong><\/p>\n

The study results were based upon a survey answered by 1,009 tourists to Macao, all of whom identified themselves as smokers and were 18 years old or above. The sample comprised mainly tourists from either Mainland China (52.8 percent) or Hong Kong (32.3 percent).<\/p>\n

Dr. Lam and Mr. Im note in their paper that while \u201cpast behaviour\u201d has a strong impact on tourists\u2019 intention to smoke in public indoor areas while in Macao, such a factor is highly dependent on the smoking-control rules in place in the region of origin of each tourist. The IFTM researchers therefore suggest that Macao authorities focus instead on trying to impact the \u201cattitude\u201d factor in order to reduce visitors\u2019 desire to smoke indoors while in the city.<\/p>\n

Influencing visitor attitudes is of particular importance in relation to tourists from Mainland China, a jurisdiction where rules on smoking in public places are still relatively lax. \u201cAt this moment, most Chinese smokers may get used to lighting up their cigarettes wherever and whenever they want to smoke, perhaps even when they are travelling, due to the limited smoking ban in Mainland China,\u201d say the IFTM scholars.<\/p>\n

Dr. Lam and Mr. Im suggest that Macao authorities highlight to tourists the growing popularity of smoking-ban policies in various well-developed tourism destinations. In addition, Macao authorities should promote to visitors the core message of \u201cexperiencing a different yet enchanting lifestyle\u201d whilst in the city, i.e., curbing their smoking habits.<\/p>\n

Highlighting the wide acceptance of smoking bans, and the opportunity to have a different lifestyle while in Macao, seek to change tourist attitudes towards smoking. While such promotional effort may not be sufficient in shaping visitor attitudes regarding smoking in public indoor areas in a comprehensive way, \u201cit will help to reduce their intention of repeating their daily smoking behaviour while travelling to Macao,\u201d posit Dr. Lam and Mr. Im.<\/p>\n

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More info<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
The researchers<\/div>\nDr. Cindia Lam is an Assistant Professor at IFTM. She has a PhD in Business Administration from the Catholic University of Portugal and is the Academic Coordinator of IFTM\u2019s Evening Degree Programmes. Dr. Lam has served as a consultant to the Macao Government on a number of its projects. Her research interests range from tourism and hospitality development to quality of life and service quality.<\/p>\n

IFTM Lecturer Mr. Billy Im holds a Master\u2019s degree in Hospitality Administration from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in the United States. His academic research interests focus on tourist behaviour, gaming, and hospitality management. Mr. Im\u2019s work experience includes a number of roles in the hospitality industry.
\n<\/div>\n

The paper<\/div>\n– The paper
\nCindia Ching-Chi Lam and Billy Ut-Lon Im: \u201cTourist floods, GDP rockets, the government intervenes: smoking ordinance and its implementation\u201d, Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events, Volume 11, Issue 2, pages 294-310, 2019.
\nhttps:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/19407963.2018.1516081<\/a>
\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A study by 2 scholars from IFTM has concluded that \u201cpast behaviour\u201d \u2013 a reference to smoking-control rules in a person\u2019s place of origin \u2013 has a strong impact upon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":5639,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,136],"tags":[581,502,400,1318,1316,1317,1319,402],"class_list":["post-5640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-knowledge","category-main_headline","tag-billy-im","tag-cindia-lam","tag-macao","tag-non-smoking","tag-smoking-ban","tag-smoking-ordinance","tag-smoking-control","tag-tourism"],"views":972,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5640"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5647,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5640\/revisions\/5647"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}