Does perception of authenticity attract visitors to agricultural settings?

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn the context of social and cultural relativity, there has been ample discussion about the fluidity and complexity of authenticity. This debate, termed ‘dilemma of authenticity’, centres around conflicting stances among tourism theorists, practitioners, marketers, and host communities with regards to how authenticity is perceived and how it influences tourists’ decision-making. This uncertainty has hindered agritourism entrepreneurs who remain unsure of how they may rely on authenticity to attract tourists. This paper examines perceptions of authenticity in working agricultural landscapes through two between-subject experiments to investigate how appealing the self-expressed authentic agricultural elements appear to potential tourists. One experiment was carried out in a controlled laboratory experiment employing Immersive Virtual Environment technology, and the second via a web-based survey using two-dimensional photos. Participants were undergraduate students and Amazon Mechanical Turk Master Workers, respectively. The results suggest that participants identify productive elements of agricultural landscapes as both authentic and appealing, though significantly differing in regards to socio-cultural elements. The triangulation of methods and samples reveal discrepant findings for wooded and riparian areas. This paper brings about novel findings about the perception of authenticity and appeal in agricultural settings.