Leisure marketing C10 LM

Authenticity and visitor engagement

DUE DATE: 15 / 12 / 2017

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The following paper aims to explore the literature surrounding authenticity in the context of
tourism, along with relative tourists’ engagement. This involves a full investigation of
authenticity theories, accompanied with examples from cultural/heritage tourism sector.
Additionally, this work examines the role of authenticity in tourist’s behaviour in relation to
heritage sites. On other hand, the paper addresses the issues of lack of consensus about what the
concept of authenticity represents to scholars and tourists, with evidence from different
disciplines. The researched literature was carried out through the lens of Heriot-Watt Discovery
platform and Google Scholar. Keyword searched included terms such as authenticity, tourism
experience, heritage tourism, tourist’s engagement and existential authenticity.

Authenticity is a substantial theme in tourism literature. It has gained increasing attention, and
has generated a growing diverse and various contemporary debates over decades (Boorstin, 1961;
Bruner, 1989; McCannell, 1973; Salamone 1997; Wang, 1999; Steiner and Reisinger, 2006).
According to Trilling (1972), authenticity in tourism was originally used in museums where
experts wanted to test” whether objects of art are what they appear to be or are claimed to be, and
therefore worth the price that is asked for them- or worth admiration they are given”. This
museum-linked usage has been extended to cover different products of tourism, including: rituals,
housing, festivals and so forth. These products can be perceived as authentic or inauthentic
depending on the tradition and origin behind making or performing by locals. Sharpley (1994)
describes authenticity in tourism as anything that is associated with sense of the genuine,
traditional culture and its origin, and the real unique. However, authenticity in recent tourism
literature is much more unstable concept in tourist experiences, and it means far more than this
assumption. Wang (1999) states that the complexity of authenticity in tourism context can be
differentiated into two distinct parameters: tourists’ authentic experiences and toured objects.
These two elements are often misunderstood as one tied aspect of authenticity. An authentic
experience is one in which people are freely self-expressed in both with a real world and real
selves (Handler and Saxton, 1988). Selwyn (1996) related the experience of a real world to
“authenticity as knowledge”, and associated the experience of real self to “authenticity as
feeling”. On other hand, toured objects involve the recognition of originality by tourists as
authentic, using absolute and objective criterion to measure objects authenticity. This segregation
of the authenticity of experiences from the authenticity of toured objects is pivotal for introducing
an alternative source of authentic experiences, referred as “existential authenticity” (Wang,

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1999). This authenticity involves individual’s personal feeling activated when performing
activities to feel a potential existential state of themselves, and search for more authentic selves
than in everyday life (Wang, 1999). For example, when tourists engage in activities such as ocean
cruising or camping, they feel more of themselves and stress-free from daily life routine, not
because they admire the tour objects as authentic. The long term academic discussion on the
complex nature of authenticity in tourism is exhibited in three major approaches: objectivism,
constructivism and existentialism. It should be noted that both objective and constructive
authenticity are object-related, whereas existentialism is an activity-related authenticity.

Objectivism approach of authenticity is based on objects that are independently judged by experts
according to certain standards in order to assess their real nature, and not as may be perceived by
tourists. Relph (1976) states that authenticity indicates all that has flavor of realism,
unadulterated, actual and genuine with no hypocrisy. Therefore, objects that are staged cannot be
objectively authentic, regardless of tourist judgments’. Boorstin (1982) and McCannell (1973)
have insisted on the conception of objective authenticity by criticising mass tourism for
generating “pseudo-events”, and by condemning commoditisation of culture that results in
‘’staged tourism’’, respectively. The rise of constructivism and postmodernism has eliminated the
simple notion that authenticity exists when toured objects are experienced to be true and original.
Constructivism approach characterises authenticity as a social construction of what being visited
in terms of perspectives, beliefs or points of views, and not because they are inherently authentic
(Wang, 1999). As a consequence of the influence of social discourse, authenticity is a projection
of tourist’s expectations and image stereotypes onto toured objects (Silver, 1993; Bruner, 1991).
These objects may be perceived as inauthentic at first, but over time, they may become authentic
through a process that Cohen (1988) describes as “emergent authenticity”. For instance, Disney
World was initially prejudged as an environment constructed based on fiction, but with passage
of time anything that happens there become authentic. For constructivists, meanings of things are
plural and can be established from wider perspectives depending on intersubjective setting or
specific contextual situation. This implies that authenticity is negotiable (Cohen, 1988) and
ideological (Silver, 1993). As a result, tourists are in quest for symbolic authenticity, rather than
perceiving toured objects as originals. For example, tourists take home souvenirs from
destinations visited as authentic evidence. Existentialism approach is a distinctive source of
authentic experiences in tourism. This comes from disregarding the conception of authenticity by

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breaking boundaries between reality and the symbol, original and the fake. Wang (1999) related
existential authenticity to “potential existential states of Being which is to be activated by tourist
activities”. This means that engaging in an activity that is free from constraints of monotonous
routines has a superior meaning, especially in triggering personal and intersubjective feelings to
attain existential state. Wang (1999) further classified this suggested alternative authenticity that
is attached to postmodernism paradigm into two specific dimensions: intra-personal and inter-
personal authenticity. Intra-personal authenticity involves two main elements, including: the
bodily feelings of pleasure and self-making. These serve as motivation to recognise their
authentic selves in everyday life, particularly in seeking extra-mundane experiences from
activities. This allows tourists to challenge existing selves or discover alternatives ones. Inter-
personal authenticity consists of driving tourists to experience authenticity through the lens of
“Communitas” and family ties. Communitas occurs as a pure relationship among pilgrims based
on their common humanity, excluding all socioeconomic and sociopolitical structures. This
enables tourist to go beyond tensions that found to be present from inauthentic social hierarchy to
obtain a friendly authentic experience.

Given the considerable interest in authenticity among tourism scholars, along with the resulted
conflicting differences surrounding the notion of authenticity, Reisinger and Steiner (2006)
suggest that object authenticity as a concept should be replaced by another perspective that
accommodate the thoughts of the three leading ideologies for conceptual dominance, building on
Wang’s (1999) celebrating work. This alternative view originates from the philosophy of
Heidegger (1962). This allows to construct new avenues in relation tourist experiences of toured
objects, but it will not be in the familiar form. For Heidegger (1962), a concept is never an
indication of a ‘thing’. Instead, a concept is how humans sense themselves in regards to things.
Therefore, the concept of object authenticity turn into how tourists understand themselves in
connection to the object. Further, Steiner and Reisinger (2006) conclude that Heidegger’s concept
in relation to existential authenticity demonstrate a promising conceptual framework for
exploring the idea of authenticity for tourists as well as hosts.

Since the objective, constructive and existential authenticity are solely focused on objective-
subjective orientation in the authenticity/tourism discourse, the power of making judgments and
searching for authenticity are not only associated with originality of toured objects, social

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construction, or existential experience but also with other actors in the specific socio-spatial
context. On one hand, building on this assumption, Zhu (2012) introduced a new form of
authenticity, referred as “performative authenticity” to further encompass the interaction between
memory, habitus and embodied practice. This serves as an additional arrangement to the existing
discourse on authenticity. An example of this authenticity is the Naxi wedding ceremony located
in Lijiang, China, where traditional marriage celebrations take place as ritual performance,
packaged as cultural tourism product. On other hand, Wang (2007) argue that an interrelation
between object related authenticity and existential authenticity “self” can co-exist through an
underlying mechanism called “home”, which eventually leads to the production of an
authenticity, known as ‘’customised authenticity’’. In the sense that, tourist tend to experience
home related consumption characterized with pursuit of true self, distinctive environment and
object-related authenticity at certain extent. Wang (2007) states that this authenticity sought
through homes occurs as result of being constructed jointly between tourists and hosts, rather
than being preserved. This is revealed by using Naxi homestay guesthouses as a field of study
and generating source to this authenticity.

Giving the unsettled debate on authenticity based on various ideologies mentioned, and
recognising its significant attribute in heritage tourism, or at least the perception of it (Taylor,
2001), and its value as driving force that motivates tourists to travel long distances to visit
cultural heritage sites (McCannell, 1973), it is about time to investigate the role of object and
existential authenticity in tourism destination management domain. To be more specific, the
intent is to understand tourist's engagement and loyalty as behavioural consequences in response
to heritage authenticity consumption. Kolar and Zabker (2010) proposed a consumer-based
model in which authenticity serves a mediating role between cultural motivation and loyalty.
Cultural motivation is used to understand tourist behaviour (Kolar and Zabker, 2010), and people
associated with cultural tourism are more likely to engage with activities related to historical
sites, local festival and art performances (Mckercher, 2002). The model indicates that cultural
motivation is an antecedent to object-centered and activity-related authenticity, which in return
affect tourist’s behavioural consequences, as represented by the construct of loyalty. Due to
distinctiveness of its domestic heritage tourism market, Bryce et al (2015) used Japan context to
further extend Kolar and Zabker (2010) ideas on consumer-based model of authenticity. This by
including following concepts: serious leisure (Stebbins, 1996), Behaviors linked to heritage

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(McDonald, 2011), self-connection (Park, 2010), in order to study their collective influence as
preconceived notions not only on tourists loyalty to a site, but also their impact on engagement
(Taheri et al, 2014). Bryce et al (2015) conclude that preconceived notions and perceptions of
authenticity are an important antecedent to engagement, which in return have an influence on
tourist’s loyalty. Additionally the concepts that form preconceived notion are seen to be
antecedent to tourist behavioural consequence, meaning loyalty. This implies that the role of
authenticity through the lens of objectivism and existentialism is extremely impacting in heritage
tourism sector, especially in tourist’ behaviour. Therefore, managerial understandings of cultural
tourists’ motivation and relative conditions in which authenticity can be presented to consumers
is deemed to be important in order to capture and retain this specific target segment.

In closing, the literature researched has put into perspective the impossibility of arriving at a
common ground as understanding of a single concept. The irreconcilable ideologies cited
demonstrate a fluctuating authenticity that can mean different things to different people. It can be
an object-related approach on objective authenticity, a socially constructed authenticity, an
activity-centered approach on existential authenticity, a performative approach or even a
customised authenticity. Thus, it is not appropriate to employ one single term to perform the
myriad conflicting meanings of authenticity. It is suggested for policymakers as well as marketers
to appreciate the potential of authenticity as promotional tool for tourism campaigns and
initiatives. In diverse cultural and heritage contexts, authenticity can be used as a central element
to build an effective destination image. This to reflect globally the desires of tourists for credible,
cultural or existential construction.

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