The Effect of Authenticity Orientation on Existential Authenticity and Postvisitation Intended Behavior

This study puts to empirical test the existence of three attitudes toward object-based authenticity that have been theorized in the literature as realist, constructivist, and postmodernist. We examine the relationship between an individual’s orientation toward object-based authenticity and the existential authenticity of tourists’ experience and postvisitation intended behavior. Two tourism settings are used: a museum with genuine historical artifacts and a place where authenticity is re-created, reconstructed, and interpreted. We find that the impact of authenticity orientation depends on the nature of the site: it affects existential authenticity in the re-created setting only. The largest differences are recorded between realists and postmodernists. Intended behavior does not depend on authenticity orientation when we control for the impact of existential authenticity.