Do Tourists Really Care about Authenticity? A Study on Tourists’ Perceptions of Nature and Culture Authenticity

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. “Landscape” 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’ perceptions of the destination image in both the context of nature (β = 0.51, p < 0.01) and the cultural context (β = 0.65, p < 0.01). Perceived authenticity also has positive effects on the satisfaction for both the natural (β = 0.42, p < 0.01) and cultural (β = 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.