Influence of Cultural Identity on Tourists’ Authenticity Perception, Tourist Satisfaction, and Traveler Loyalty

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper deals with an interesting and original theme, however it contains some cThe paper deals with an interesting and original theme, however it contains some critical points of approachritical points of approach.

I suggest to the authors to separate more clearly the theoretical part from the empirical part.

The introduction should highlight the reasons justifying the research, the objective and the articulation of the work.

The difference between literature review and theoretical basis is not clear.
I suggest considering the theoretical background in a single paragraph.

The difference between literature review and theoretical basis is not clear.
I suggest considering the theoretical background in a single paragraph.
Then explain the assumptions of the work.
The research design usually refers to the empirical part of the work. It explains the process followed in the empirical research.

Data collection is a part of the empirical analysis.

Descriptive Statistical Analysis, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Structural Equation Model Analysis are tools used for empirical analysis.

 It should be added a paragraphon the discussion of the results, in which the theoretical part is linked to the empirical part.

It is unuseless to call the last paragraph "conclusion and implications".
The conclusion contain the implications of the work, both theoretical and managerial.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

I really appreciate I was asked by the editors to review this interesting paper about tourists’ perception of authenticity. This is both interesting and significant topic. In particular, discussion about authenticity of tourists’ experience should be emphasized in postmodernist societies. Moreover, many of researchers tries to redefine tourism and its fundamentals affected by global crisis resulting from COVID-19 outbreak. Your paper might be significant contribution to better understanding of possible future of tourism: based on cultural identity, sustainability, and social/spatial justice. Please, consider few of my remarks. I hope you will find them fruitful when revising your paper.

My first remark is about the title of the paper. Let me repeat this: “Research on the Influence of Cultural Identity on Tourists' Authenticity Perception: Exampled by Intangible Cultural Heritage of Handicraft and Artifact Products”. This is really long, and unnecessarily overloaded with content. The core is “The Influence of Cultural Identity on Tourists' Authenticity Perception”. If you really want to link this problem to your case study, consider “Handicraft and Artifact Products”. Thus, in my opinion, two or three options are available: 1) “The Influence of Cultural Identity on Tourists' Authenticity Perception”, 2) “The Influence of Cultural Identity on Tourists' Authenticity Perception: Example of Handicraft and Artifact Products”, or 3) “The Influence of Cultural Identity on Tourists' Authenticity Perception: Example of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Celadon Town of Longquan” emphasizing geographical context in a title.

You mentioned categories of traditional methods protecting intangible cultural heritage: salvage operation, folk protection, school education, museum preservation, and heritage institution (rows: 31-33). You indicated them as traditional. Thus, I suppose these categories were already well defined by other researchers. In my opinion, some literature references are requested in this section. Another remark about literature references is about ABC model of attitudes, introduced by M. Ray in 1973. See the chapter “Marketing communications and the hierarch-of-effects”, in “New Models for Mass Communications” edited by P. Clarke. My strong recommendation is to improve list of literature references. Just to avoid allegation of plagiarism.

Figures 2-4 might enable better understanding of hypotheses stated. Thus, I strongly recommend to put symbols referring to all hypotheses (H1s-c, H2a-c, H3a-c, H4, and H5) on mentioned figures. In consequence, the section about research design might be restructured. Particular figures should follow separately introduced hypotheses. However, I would like to underline that your research is very well designed. I have no serious remarks related to methods you have applied to test all your hypotheses.

Can you introduce some data to better understand representativeness of the tourists’ sample? Do you have any data related to the number of tourists visiting research area in the period you distributed questionnaires? If so, what should be the minimum sample size to make this representative? Is it possible to compare characteristics of tourists visiting research area with descriptive statistics of sample basic information you have already presented in table 4? All mentioned information would significantly improve the value of your research from statistical point of view.

I strongly suggest to improve the results section. In particular, you present the results of the structural equation model analysis. A vast number of abbreviations were used and some parts of the text is a bit fuzzy: see the paragraph between the rows 335 and 339. On the other hand, there are no linkages between quantitative results and tables presenting hypotheses tested. Please, consider some additional remarks: abbreviations used in figure 5 should be explained in the caption below, figure 6 is not mentioned in the text, what are the numbers presented in the figure 6?, what is the interpretation of mentioned numbers?

Finally, my serious worries relates to missing discussion section. I understand that only few papers (references are suggested) related to the problem of impact of cultural identity on tourists' authenticity perception exists. Authors mentioned this at the beginning. However, there is no discussion between scientific achievements of authors and other abovementioned researchers. Thus, I strongly recommend to develop discussion section. Just to fit the results to the progress along the science continuum.

Good luck with your research!

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The article is a very interesting case study. It tackles an important topic, both in terms of tourism development and the preservation of intangible cultural heritage. The reviewer has only some comments that are worth considering by the authors of the text:

1. The introduction section contains the following sentence: „Traditional protection methods are categorized into five types, namely, salvage operation, folk protection, school education, museum preservation, and heritage institution, which can be combined with the process of tourism development”.There is no indication who is the author of this classification. I suggest appropriate addition.
2. „Practice shows that tourists ultimately determine the success of the development of intangible cultural heritage tourism” – I suggest to reformulate this thought. In its current wording it is obvious. It does not bring a new load of information.
3. „In addition, improper forms of tourism development result in difficulties for products related to intangible cultural heritage to attract tourists” – I suggest developing the thought. What forms are "improper", what does "improper" mean in this context?
4. Structure of the article: point 3 „Theoretical Basis and Research Design” The title suggests that in this point the reader will find the whole theoretical base included in the article. Meanwhile (and rightly so) part of the theory (including the concept of authenticity) is placed in the Introduction section. I suggest changing the name of point 3.
5. In the field of literature used – I suggest to supplement it with selected items on the theory of cultural heritage values and their relation to the economics of heritage (e.g. Throsby D., Economics and Culture) and adding the literature on the theory of authenticity (e.g. Steiner C., Reisinger Y. (2006) Understanding existential authenticity,"Annals of Tourism Research", vol. 33, No. 2; Pearce P., Moscardo G. (1986) The Concept of Authenticity in Tourist Experiences, "Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology", No. 22; Kim, Jamal T. (2007) Touristic Quest for Existential Authenticity, "Annals of Tourism Research", vol. 34, No. 1; Jamal T., Hill S. (2004) Developing a Framework for Indicators of Authenticity: The Placeand Space of Cultural and Heritage Tourism, "Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research", vol. 9, no. 4; Selwyn T. (1996) The Tourist Image: Myths and myth making in tourism, Wiley, Chichester).
6. Comments on the surveys: In the groups of respondents ("Passenger origin") the last indicated group is: "Outside Zhejiang Province". Probably it would be interesting for the reader to elaborate it - where did this respondents come from? (if the design of the survey allows, of course). The authors should also pay attention to the fact that almost 80% of respondents were independent travelers - they are definitely different clients (tourists) from the ones that use the offer of the travel agencies, hence their perception of authenticity may be different.The facts of this sample disproportion and differentiation should be taken into account in the conclusion section.
7. The list of literature should be analyzed in terms of editorial guidelines (eg the authors do not use abbreviations of journals names).

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

There continues to be confusion between theoretical and empirical part.

I suggest to include the text of Theoretical Basis in the litarature review or use this text to introduce a paragraph namend Research Hypothesis. This paragraph should be insert after literature review.

I suggest to delete Research Design, because in this form it is no clear.

After paragraph Research Hypothesis I suggest to insert Empirical Research. The first subparagraph of empirical research is  Case Survey.

The structure could be:

1. Introduction

2. Literature review

3. Research Hypothesis

4. Empirical research

4.1 Case survey

4.2... Data Collection

4.3...Data Analysis

5. Discussion and conclusion

 

In the introduction it is important to insert the structure of the paper and a little description of single paragraphs.

The discussion could be enhanced. I suggest to insert connections between results and theoretical part.

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is publishable in present form.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your suggestion. The English language of the paper has been checked and revised. Please refer to the revised version.

Best Regards,

Di Tian