Visitors’ perceived trust in sincere, authentic, and memorable heritage experiences

Abstract

The success of cultural destinations often centres on whether consumers trust the provenance and integrity of the heritage assets, activities, and services therein. However, few studies examine whether this 'perceived trust' influences the authenticity, sincerity, and memorability of cultural heritage consumption. To investigate the relationships between these constructs, we surveyed 320 visitors to Iranian cultural heritage sites. The findings suggest that perceived trust positively influences visitors' perceptions of sincerity, existential authenticity, and object-based authenticity, stimulating memorable experiences in the process. This, in turn, emphasises the antecedent importance of perceived trust in shaping consumption. In the face of increasing commercialization within the cultural heritage sector more generally, we therefore encourage practitioners to prioritise safeguarding the integrity of their offerings, promoting heritage assets in a manner that stimulates perceived trust.

Assessing the Mediating Role of Residents’ Perceptions toward Tourism Development

“…It is therefore also important to build trust between tourism developers, local authorities, and residents (cf. Taheri, Gannon, and Kesgin 2019). As residents typically hold little power over the tourism planning process, they may not trust that local authorities and development organizations are working in their best interests.…”

A serious leisure perspective of culinary tourism co-creation: the influence of prior knowledge, physical environment and service quality

“…We focus on domestic tourism for several reasons. First, given the current sanctions against Iran, international tourist numbers have dwindled leaving the industry reliant on domestic travellers (Taheri, Gannon and Kesgin, 2019 As data was collected from a single-source, CMB required further verification;…”

“…In contrast, “recreation” centres on the experience itself, including the enjoyment derived from participation in an activity (Taheri et al , 2014). The physical environment an activity occurs within appeals to the sensory dimensions of perceived experiential value (Taheri et al , 2019a, 2019b), which provides immediate, tangible cues from which to appraise one’s experiences (Smith et al , 2010). Studies demonstrate that physical environments are crucial within the domain of food tourism, generating value when novel, clean and appealing to all of the customers’ senses (Adongo et al , 2015).…”

Combined Effects of Drivers and Impact of Customer Satisfaction on Brand Loyalty: The Contingent Effect of Social Trust

“…Customers' satisfaction exerts robust consequence on brand loyalty (β = 0.389, t = 6.436, p < .001); therefore, H6 is supported. Moreover, according to Taheri et al (2019), PROCESS macro 3.2 was employed for SPSS 23.0. We employed Model 4 stipulating 5,000 bootstraps samples on a bias-corrected method with 95% confidence interval (CI) for mediation effects (Hayes, 2013).…”