Abstract
Ethnically themed restaurants make up a substantial proportion of the food outlets in the hospitality industry, yet little is known about the effectiveness of theming. The goal of this study is to find out whether diners, with varying degrees of experience in a particular culture, evaluate authentic and themed ethnic restaurants differently. To this aim, video clips of Italian restaurants, some themed and some authentic, were shown to restaurant patrons. The diners with more familiarity with the culture were found to be better at distinguishing between authentic and themed restaurants and also rated authentic restaurants more positively than their culturally inexperienced counterparts. Both groups liked authentic restaurants better than the themed restaurants, but this preference was more pronounced among the culturally experienced patrons. Moreover, customers familiar with Italian culture considered the authenticity of themed Italian restaurants less important than culturally naïve patrons. As a result, the study reinforces the importance of identifying the target customer and adapting design elements to meet customers' expectations in the theming of restaurants.
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