Experiencing the real village – a netnographic examination of perceived authenticity in rural tourism consumption

ABSTRACT

There is an upsurge of research interest regarding authenticity in contemporary tourism consumption as modern tourists have been found to prefer involve in real backstage experiences to participating in pseudo-events and mass congregations. This paper presents a netnographic analysis of tourists’ reviews on village destinations and explores how authenticity is experienced by tourists in a village setting and the indicators pertaining to it. Trip Advisor reviews of three Indian villages were downloaded and analysed. Findings reveal that tourists consider authenticity as a critical factor in rural village experience. The indicators of rural authentic experience and their implications are also highlighted.

KEYWORDS:

• Authenticity
• Netnography
• Rural tourism
• Object-based authenticity
• Existential authenticity
• Tourist experience
• Thematic analysis
• Content analysis
• Qualitative research
• TripAdvisor

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

J. H. Jyotsna http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6827-6546