What is Culinary tourism?

Culinary tourism or food tourism or gastronomy tourism is the exploration of food as the

purpose of tourism
Focuses on the search for and enjoyment of prepared food and drink. Culinary Tourism promotes
all gastronomic experiences . It’s the pursuit of unique and memorable eating and drinking
experiences
Why is Culinary Tourism Important?
Nearly 100% of tourists dine out when traveling . Dining is consistently one of the top 3 favorite
tourist activities . The goal of culinary tourism is to educate and inspire food and wine
enthusiasts while giving the traveler a chance to explore the local area and learn about local food
trends, cooking techniques and food history
Who are culinary tourists?
Travelers interested in eating, sampling wine and beer, cooking, baking and learning about the
history of certain foods
A culinary tourist can be a visitor who has traveled to town specifically to dine at your
establishment. A culinary tourist can also be a business traveler who decides to dine at your
restaurant.
Pros of Culinary Tourism
• Brand awareness and potential loyalty
• Customer relationships
• Additional sales outlet
• Tourists will be more familiar with different types of places and foods that are associated with
those places.
• New sales opportunities and growth of restaurants and food vendors
• Very diverse (different cultures, wine tasting, farmers market, luxury and gourmet food travel)
which can appeal to different types of travelers.
• Cooks can seek new ideas for their own menus and have more knowledge on different types of
food.

Cons of Culinary Tourism

•Increased costs and management time of the host community and restaurants.
•Language barrier if traveling to foreign country
• Opportunity cost
• Tourist may be dissatisfied with food
• People would rather be doing and spending money on other things than just food while at a
particular destination.
• Tourists are prone to food illnesses because of foods they're not used to.

We all know that people from different cultural backgrounds eat different types of food but that’s
not all. In a lot of cases, certain dishes become symbols of their native country. For example,
people always associate pizza with Italy, ramen noodles with Japan, butter chicken with India,
борщ with Ukraine etc. Even people who never visited these countries know that and local food
plays an increasingly important role when it comes to choosing your holiday destination.
However, as mentioned above, food tourism isn’t just about what we eat. It’s also about how we
eat, where, with whom, and why.
Tourists are more interested in learning about local food and culture while traveling. Tour
operators that organize interesting activities that combine local food with local culture will
achieve a competitive edge.