Bridging sacredness and commodification: authenticity and destination image in Buddhist temple tourism

Religious tourism destination image remains theoretically fragmented, particularly regarding faith-based psychological mechanisms. This study examines how temple commodification shapes destination image through perceived authenticity of faith and how tourists’ authentic faith conditions this process. Drawing on constructivist authenticity and sacred–commercial hybridity, a moderated mediation model was tested using survey data from 470 visitors to 19 Buddhist temples in Northern Thailand. Data were analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) with hierarchical component models. The results show that temple commodification positively influences cognitive, affective, and conative destination image. Perceived authenticity of faith mediates all three relationships. Authentic faith of the tourist negatively moderates the authenticity–affective relationship, indicating that internally devout visitors rely less on external authenticity cues when forming emotional evaluations. The study advances religious tourism research by integrating commodification, faith authenticity, and destination image within a unified psychological framework.