The Wonders of Food Tourism

HospiBuz Desk 

Food tourism has been attracting tourists to different destinations for many years. But recently food tourism has seen the new hike. Tourists in bulk are traveling to different destinations to discover new and unique cuisines of the world. It doesn’t really matter if the place is crowded or not or whether it has beautiful beaches or not. The weather also has no big role to play in food tourism. If food is a major attraction, people will definitely go there.

Talking about food tourism, there are two factors that affect it. The push factor and the pull factor. Push factors are internal factors. The reason for traveling can be rejuvenating, relaxing or maybe an escape from the daily routine. Pull factors are the ones which attracts the tourist so much that they are forced to choose one destination over the other.

During a study, it has been seen that food blogs have influenced people a lot to travel to different places for food. It was also found that people who prefer food tourism, most of them are of the age group of 25 to 30 years and they are either undergraduate or postgraduate. They belong to an income level from low to high. This proves that food tourism is affected by education, not by income.

There are majorly 6 motivations for a tourist to opt for food tourism. 3 of them come under the category of push factors, the other 3 are the pull factors. The push factors include the taste of food, the cultural experience and socialization. The other three are the pull factors which include core food tourism appeals, traditional food appeals, and local food destination appeals.

The taste of food is the most important motivator for food tourists. Cultural experience and socialization come next because they are counted as a desire of the tourist to increase their friendship in the food tourism destination. Food tourists are more interested in destinations which have an abundance of heritage and culture. Food tourism appeals majorly include rural food markets. The traditional and visitors friendly environment. Local destination appeals refer to the diverse culture of the area. The other attractions may include, dining with locals, eating home-cooked food etc. taking cooking classes, roaming in local markets, enjoying the local culture and food festivals can be an awesome experience for them.

Hotels and destination management organizations can offer food tourism related packages to them. They can offer tourist to taste local food in traditional settings. They can design unique themes to make an attractive food destination for tourists. They can help them communicate and connect with fellow tourists. Food tours or sessions can be taken by celebrity chefs. Food travel motivation is diverse and it attracts tourists in several ways.