The role of authenticity, experience quality, emotions, and satisfaction in a cultural heritage destination

ABSTRACT

Recent studies have shown the increasing importance of affective and subjective variables, such as experience quality, authenticity, and emotions in the formation of tourist satisfaction. This paper is a pioneer in jointly analysing the influence of authenticity in its double dimension, experience quality, and emotions variables on satisfaction in a cultural context. This study uses the structural equation modelling approach (Partial Least Square) and shows the direct and positive influence of objective and existential authenticity on the quality of the experience, as well as the direct and positive influence of the quality of experience on emotions. It is highly relevant to focus on both cognitive and affective dimensions of authenticity to improve the quality of the tourists’ experience. No previous studies in the literature examine the possible relationships between the different dimensions of authenticity on the quality of the experience and on emotions. The work reveals the importance of such variables in generating greater tourist satisfaction with the visited destination.

KEYWORDS:

• Authenticity
• experience quality
• emotions
• satisfaction
• cultural tourism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Ana María Domínguez-Quintero Ph.D. in Economics is an Associate Professor at the University of Seville. The research interest on Tourism focuses mainly on Cultural Tourism. The Doctoral Dissertation titled ‘The development of a structural model to measure Satisfaction in cultural tourism’ obtained the European Mention accreditation at the University of Seville. Recent topics on tourism are related to Authenticity, Quality of Experience, Emotions, Perceived value and Satisfaction. She has been guest professor at York St John University (UK) collaborating with Visit York (Tourist Office) in tourism area. Other academic activities at the University of Seville are related to teaching quantitative and qualitative methods and collaborating to improve the internationalisation actions of the University.

María Rosario González-Rodríguez. Ph.D. in Economics is an Associate Professor at the University of Seville. The research interest on Tourism focuses mainly on Cultural Tourism and Authenticity, efficiency and competitiveness in hotel industry and intermediation sector, customer satisfaction, market segmentation analysis in tourism and its strategies of promotion and advertisement, measurement and analysis of the tourism impact on the economy and society, among other topics. She supervises three Ph. D. projects: ‘Development of a structural Model to measure the cultural tourist satisfaction’; ‘Business financing of rural tourism accommodation in Andalusia’ and ‘Cultural identity and its importance to preserve local heritage in Andalusian region.’ Recent topics are related to sentiment analysis on tourism sector through social networks. Other fields of research are related to strategy firm, Corporate Social Responsibility and Human values, electronic markets and online consumer behaviour, hotels Internationalisation speed and technological pattern, partial least squares (PLS), segmentation analysis and survival analysis. She is currently on the editorial board of Advances in Hospitality and Tourism Research (AHTR) and Electronic Journal of Applied Statistical Analysis (EJASA) and is a guest Professor at different European, Latin and Indian Universities.

José L. Roldán, Ph.D., is a Professor of Management in the Department of Business Administration and Marketing at the Universidad de Sevilla (Spain). He received his Doctorate from the Universidad de Sevilla in Business Administration, with a specialisation in information systems. He has been Visiting Professor at different European and Latin American Universities. His current research interests include technology acceptance models, business intelligence, knowledge management, social network sites and partial least squares (PLS). His recent contributions have been published in British Journal of Management, Journal of Business Economics and Management, International Business Review, European Journal of Information Systems, International Small Business Journal, Computers in Human Behavior, Computer Standards & Interfaces, Industrial Marketing Management, and Internet Research, and Internet Research, among others. In addition, he has published several book chapters for Idea Group Publishing, Information Science Reference, and Springer. He is currently on the editorial board of The Data Base for Advances in Information Systems. He has also served as Guest Editor of the European Journal of Information Systems (EJIS).

ORCID

Ana M. Domínguez-Quintero http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5066-0216

M. Rosario González-Rodríguez http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6484-4128

José Luis Roldán http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4053-7526