The Effect of Authenticity on Customers’ Positive Emotions and Perceived Value in Korean Restaurants

Abstract

Authentic aspects of food and atmospherics reflecting a particular culture of ethnic restaurants are very unique and distinctively different from aspects of food and atmospherics in non-ethnic restaurants. Because of the importance of the authenticity in restaurant business, this study examined the impact of food and atmosphere authenticity on customers’ emotions and perceived value. For achieving this aim, data were collected using questionnaires. Regarding population and sample, there were only 10 Korean restaurants in Cairo. Therefore, it was possible to collect data from the entire population. From the 400 questionnaires distributed to customers in the ten restaurants, only 320 valid questionnaire forms were received from respondents with response rate of 80 per cent. To analyze these forms, descriptive analysis, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis were used. With regards to research findings, authentic aspects of the food and authentic environmental factors induced positive emotions and higher perceived value. In addition, the regression results showed that food and atmosphere authenticity had a higher effect on positive emotions than perceived value. The results also reflected that food authenticity were more important than the dining environment authenticity regarding the impact on customers’ emotions. Thus, it was recommended that Korean restaurant managers should keep up the good performance in terms of authenticity dimensions. However, they should improve perceived value, particularly the dimension of hedonic value.