Powerful stakeholders' views of entertainment in Macao's future

The researchers employ stakeholder interviews to explore prospects for entertainment development in one rapidly changing Asia Pacific location, Macao. The authors complete eleven useful interviews with influential stakeholders through the access provided by high level institutional networks. Using the discourse analysis approach, the 11 stakeholder interviews generate 267 inferences from 547 keywords/phrases. Overall the interviewees express enthusiasm for the usefulness of expanding entertainment options. Concerns the stakeholders highlight include potential value conflicts between the public and the private sectors in the collaboration process, the existing and dominant over-reliance on gaming development and the need for the government to maintain consistencies in entertainment enabling policies. Future forms of tourism and entertainment in Macao, and more generally in the Asia Pacific region, are arguably very likely to be influenced by the views of key stakeholders and the resolution of the issues they raise. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.