Strengthening Guests’ Perceived Value Through Restaurants’ Innovativeness, Creativity, Sustainability and Local Features

Abstract

This research deals with a rarely discussed topic: upscale gastronomy. The field is under-researched due to the restrictions imposed by restaurant owners who primarily do not allow researchers to have direct contact with their guests, thus assuring them an undisturbed, private atmosphere. Despite this fact, the authors of this study were successful in assuring partners within upscale restaurants (among them holders of Michelin stars and holders of other awards) who agreed to cooperate. The aim was to verify the relationships between innovativeness, creativity, sustainability and local features as important competences of upscale gastronomy. The reliability, convergence and discriminant validity of the scales were tested by using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The results confirmed that a) innovativeness and creativity could potentially be an important antecedent of the perceived sustainability of upscale restaurants, b) innovativeness and creativity also influence the level of included local features in upscale gastronomy, and c) if guests perceive a restaurant as more sustainable and more related to its local environment, they also perceive the upscale restaurant as having higher value. In this study, sustainability and local features played a mediating role in the impact of innovativeness and creativity on perceived value.