Managing Cultural Authenticity in Tourism Destinations: Impacts on Tourist Satisfaction and Revisit Intention

Abstract

The role of cultural authenticity in determining the experiences of tourists in heritage and cultural places has been a significant topic of discussion, but the impact that authenticity can be a strategic parameter used to create a lasting behavioural impact has been little researched. This paper conceptualises and empirically considers an empirical study to establish the relationship between authenticity governance practises and their perceived authenticity, quality of tourist experiences, satisfaction, and revisit intention. Riding on the authenticity theory, resource-based view and the experience economy, the concept of authenticity is formulated as a strategic managerial construct and not merely the subjective perception. The information has been gathered using 512 data gathered at a major cultural attraction location with domestic and international tourists and was analysed by confirmatory factor and structural equation modelling. The results indicate that authenticity governance systems, such as cultural preservations activities, community involvement, narrative integrity, and commercialization regulation, are key in increasing the perceived authenticity. Authenticity as perceived has a positive impact on quality of experience of the tourists, which in turn leads to satisfaction and revisit intention. The mediation analysis proves that experience quality is one of the important mechanisms through which authenticity is converted into the results of loyalty. Also, the structural ties are higher between high cultural involvement tourists. The research contributes to the tourism management literature by presenting a complete model of causal relationship between authenticity governance and experiential and behavioural outcomes which offers practise on the sustainability of destination competitiveness.