Does country image affect consumers’ willingness to patronize ethnic restaurants?

The main aim of this paper is to investigate the influence of Country Image (CI) on consumers’ willingness to patronize (INTP) an ethnic restaurant. The research is conducted in a multi-cue approach, taking also into consideration the impact of the dining core service offer (COFF) on INTP. Specifically, a model in which CI, consumer ethnocentrism (ETN), country familiarity (CF) and COFF affect INTP is proposed and tested. As extant literature is mainly addressed at studying consumers’ evaluations and purchase intentions of tangible products sourced from foreign countries, while the Country of Origin (COO) effect on consumers’ perceptions and behaviors of services has rarely been examined, this study topic should be expressly interesting for advancing the theoretical and managerial understanding on the COO effect. This is particularly true in the case of dining services, taking into account the widespread market offer of ethnic restaurants and cafés that consumers are increasingly facing today. To test the proposed model a survey was performed. Data was gathered administering a structured questionnaire to a convenience sample composed by three hundreds individuals. Structural equation modeling (SEM) serves to test the hypotheses. The model shows a good fit and the proposed hypotheses are all fully supported. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.