Does Tourist Only Pursue Service Quality? The Moderating Effect of Authenticity on Bed and Breakfast Experience Evaluation

Abstract

From the past few decades hospitality industries have become more popular and well developed The number of bed and breakfast in Taiwan is increasing dramatically In order to attract more customers Bed & Breakfast (B&B) operators try to create cultural theme style design to provide authentic experience However is the authenticity the original characteristics be presented by B&B operators? How does authenticity influence service satisfaction? This thesis focuses mainly on the effect of service quality on B&B experience including sensory affective intellectual and behavioral dimensions and overall satisfaction Particularly this thesis investigates the moderating role of authenticity in this relationship An experimental design is used in this research The result indicated that from service quality perspectives customers care about the attitude of employees more than tangible facility quality Particularly tourists have high curiosity in learning more about local culture; authenticity performance influences their desire and behavior in cultural knowledge discovery When B&B is perceived as inauthentic customers are sensitive to service quality; whereas if the B&B is perceived as authentic customers tend to have higher tolerance on service failure Though service quality is always a critical issue authenticity should be taken into consideration for B&B business operators

Date of Award	2015 Aug 12
Original language	English
Supervisor	Ju-Faye Kao (Supervisor)