Rethinking traditional Chinese culture: A consumer-based model regarding the authenticity of Chinese calligraphic landscape

Abstract

Chinese calligraphy is a Chinese traditional cultural symbol, acting as an art form unifying literature, history, and painting. Calligraphic landscapes are common attractions in China's tourism destinations. The purpose of this study was to explore how tourists' attitudes towards calligraphy impact perceptions of authenticity. This paper further develops Kolar and Zabkar's (2010) model by adding attitude variable which differs from motivation into the model, and amending the relationship between various variables in the structural model. A confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling were performed using LISREL 8.51. This research concludes that public ignorance of traditional culture affects perceptions of authenticity and leads tourists to attribute importance to the aesthetics and form of the objective material, rather than to focus on the inner experience found in the traditional Chinese calligraphic arts. Thus tourists remain stuck in the shallow level of heritage and cultural tourism experiences. The managerial and marketing implications of authenticity within this and other contexts are then discussed.