Relationship between perception of authenticity and experience quality and behavioral intention of domestic visitors participating in gastro-cultural tours: Effect of tourist guides' interpretative role

As in many other sectors, the tourism sector also differentiates itself by focusing on changing consumer attitudes and behaviors. The fact that tourists want to move away from the traditional holiday perceptive and have new experiences, turn to the authentic and want to interact with the local culture has led to the emergence of alternative tourism types. With the cultural tours carried out in Turkey in recent years, the tourists make their tour experiences more meaningful and special by seeing the cultural values specific to the destinations, local food and beverages and the life of the local people. It can be said that these experiences are good and memorable, and the authenticity of the visited destination positively affects the behavioral intentions of the tourists. Another important factor that shapes the perception of tourists and affects their behavior is the tourist guide, who accompanies the tourist throughout the tour and conveys the destination to the tourist with all its beauty. The tourist guide is the person who conveys the cultural attractiveness, authentic elements, local food and beverages, art, architecture, historical and natural beauties of the destination to the tourist and ensures that the tour goes smoothly. These explanations constitute the basic assumptions of the research. Therefore, the aim of the research is to examine the relationship between the perception of authenticity, experience quality and behavioral intentions of the local visitors participating in the tour, and the effect of the interpretive role of tourist guides. For this purpose, a survey was conducted for the local visitors coming to Mardin with gastro-cultural tours and data were collected from 626 participants. The relationship and effect levels between the variables of the research were based on the theoretical framework. According to the findings, it was concluded that the perception of authenticity of local visitors participating in gastro-cultural tours has a positive and significant effect on the visitors' experience quality and behavioral intentions. It was revealed that there is a meaningless relationship between the tour experience quality of the visitors and their behavioral intentions. It has been concluded that the interpretative role of tourist guides positively affects the perception of authenticity, experience quality and behavioral intentions of the visitors. Based on these results, various suggestions were developed for the tourism stakeholders and the local administrators of Mardin, which is the application area of the research.