Do Tourists Really Care about Authenticity? A Study on Tourists’ Perceptions of Nature and Culture Authenticity
Li Li; Shasha Li
The role that authenticity plays in tourism is debatable. Researchers have focused on the nature of authenticity, while the natural landscape is taken for granted as authentic. &ldquo:Landscape&rdquo: is the symbolic environment created by human acts of conferring meaning to nature and the environment. The concept of nature authenticity is proposed to enrich the connotation of authenticity. A structural equation model was used to analyze the relationships between motivation, perceived authenticity, destination image and satisfaction. The results indicate that perceived authenticity positively affects tourists&rsquo: perceptions of the destination image in both the context of nature (&beta: = 0.51, p <: 0.01) and the cultural context (&beta: = 0.65, p <: 0.01). Perceived authenticity also has positive effects on the satisfaction for both the natural (&beta: = 0.42, p <: 0.01) and cultural (&beta: = 0.20, p <: 0.01) aspects. Tourists valued both nature and culture authenticity in the Chinese context. As a newly emerged phenomenon, performing arts act as an effective way to demonstrate local culture and history. The moderating effect of a performing art show was discussed with model comparison. Tourists who watched the performing arts show thought highly of the authenticity of the destination, especially regarding the cultural aspect.
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