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Purpose. In this study, the authors explore the role of museum visitors' perceptions and experiences of authenticity. They introduce several variants of authenticity experience and analyse how they are intertwined and feed visitor satisfaction. Method. The authors apply a multi-step model fitting and validation procedure including inferred causation methods and finite mixture modelling to verify whether the visitors' perceptions of authenticity are subject to unobserved heterogeneity. They elaborate an Authenticity Model that demonstrates out-of-sample validity and generalisability by being exposed to new data for another cultural attraction in another city. Then, they address the heterogeneity hypothesis and evaluate it for the case study with the larger sample. Findings. In both application cases, the Sisi museum in Vienna and the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, the empirical results support the assumed cause-effect sequence, translating high quality information display—from traditional and multimedia sources—into Perceived Authenticity and its experiential consequences such as Depth and Satisfaction. Accounting for unobserved heterogeneity detects three latent classes with segment-specific strength of relationships within the structural model. Research and conclusions limitations. The combined latent-class, structural-equation model needs validation with another sample that would have to be larger than the available Guinness database. Future studies will have to complement the purely data-driven search for heterogeneity with theory-guided reasoning about potential causes of diversity in the strength of the structural relationships. Practical implications. Cultural heritage sites are among the attractions most typical of city tourism. History tends to materialise in the artefacts accumulated by the population among the urban agglomerations, and museums are the natural places for preserving exhibits of cultural value. Authenticity must be considered an important quality assessment criterion for many visitors, whereby, the distinction between object authenticity and existential authenticity is crucial. Originality. In addition to making substantive contributions to authenticity theory, the authors also extend previous research in terms of methodological effort. Authenticity research, so far, has neither exploited inferred causation methods nor combined latent variable modelling with detecting unobserved heterogeneity. Type of paper: Research article.

Customer satisfaction is one of the most important success drivers. Managers need to understand how satisfaction is formed, which factors to focus on, and how to increase the performance. The Kano model offers useful guidance for managers to increase customer satisfaction. It assumes that there are three different factors, which influence overall satisfaction, and that the weight of these factors changes over time. This study adds to limited empirical evidence on temporal changes of nonlinear relationships between attribute performance and customer satisfaction. The data comprise two waves of a large-scale sample of more than 40,000 skiers in 55 Alpine ski resorts in 2012 and 2016. Applying nonlinear structural equation modeling, Ski Core and Value-for-Money were identified as basic factors (dissatisfiers) and Ski Peripherals as a performance factor. Change in skiers' satisfaction levels operates at a slow pace and, besides general industry trends, time-related segmentation criteria like loyalty and skier skills play a salient role. Especially, the attribute Value-for-Money is prone to temporal changes.
AcknowledgmentsWe thank Michael Partel from Mountain-Management C. Est for granting access to the data.