Exploring the Roles of Servicescape and Trust in Chinese Restaurants in Taiwan

While literature focusing on the constructs of the environmental factors of servicescape and trust are relatively common in Western countries, the empirical studies which focus on the Chinese context of the restaurant service sector are rather limited and need to be expanded. The purpose of this study is to fill in some of this gap in research by analysing the relationships between servicescape, trust and customers’ choice of restaurant within the Chinese cultural society in Taiwan. This study concludes that trust has a very strong positive association for customers‘ choice of restaurant in Taiwan. On the other hand, although empirical findings have shown that servicescape is a very important factor in affecting customers‘ intentions and purchasing behaviour, this study reveals that servicescape is not an important element for customers’ choice of small Chinese restaurants in Taiwan. This study suggests that for different customers from different countries with different eating cultures, the servicescape elements may not apply to all of these customers.