2026 Volume 46 Issue 3 Pages 277-287
Cultural adaptation by service providers to customers from different cultural backgrounds—that is, the provision of cross-cultural service—may be favorable for those customers, yet domestic tourists also coexist within the same service environment. However, no prior research has examined whether cross-cultural service may both positively and negatively affect the satisfaction of domestic tourists. Accordingly, the present study focuses on the possibility that a high level of cultural adaptation for inbound tourists may lower the level of service directed toward domestic tourists and may engender perceptions of inequity among them, and hypothesizes both positive and negative effects of cross-cultural service. The results of structural equation modeling show that cross-cultural service 1) reduces domestic tourists’ satisfaction by evoking a sense of imbalance stemming from a perceived relative decrease in the level of routine service compared to that received by inbound tourists, while 2) enhances domestic tourists’ satisfaction by fostering perceptions of service provider competence, but 3) does not lead to a perceived absolute decrease in the level of routine service. Furthermore, bootstrap tests of indirect effects reveal that 4) once an absolute decrease in the level of routine service is perceived, the resulting decline in satisfaction is substantial.
