Cooking classes, visitor-friendly food markets, and packaged food tours can help tourists increase friendships with other tourists, get acquainted with farmers, cooks and food producers, or interact with local chefs. Foodie tourists are motivated to visit cities, hotels and areas to experience foods that are specific to that part of the world. Foodie tourists embark on tours that not only broaden their palate, but provide them with the education needed to identify the link between food and local customs. Food tourism, also known as culinary tourism and food tourism, is done by people looking for culinary experiences to broaden their understanding of a culture or lifestyle while traveling.
However, gastronomic tourism has disadvantages that can challenge a community and destroy its cultural heritage in search of profit. In turn, marketing departments of food and beverage companies can leverage social influencers to promote their restaurants, products or food festivals. As such, a proper tourism-related website design is now the key to marketing gastronomic or gastronomic tourism. Despite the fact that there is extensive literature on the promotion of tourist destinations, there are few studies on the relationship between the promotion of tourism and food.
Food tourism became an experiential industry that included festivals, wine tastings and other personalized offers, as well as the emergence of gastronomic tourism companies. The use of creativity with combined technology will allow companies in the food tourism industry to continue to attract gourmets and keep the flame of travel burning, meeting current and changing demands. It was founded in 2002 and comprises around 58 companies, including producers, restaurateurs and stores that currently promote food production and culinary tourism in the area. Those seeking management positions in hospitality and tourism have the opportunity to educate gastronomic tourists and help them enjoy a gastronomy-focused vacation, while minimizing the negative impact on local communities.
Additional knowledge of resources and the ability to innovate should be developed and addressed to interact with all food and tourism sectors as a whole. Food tourism presents an excellent opportunity for hospitality professionals to attract new visitors, provide new experiences to existing customers, and even access new marketing opportunities. To achieve this goal, a literature review is conducted and seven individuals involved in different food-related activities in the two areas of study are interviewed; these include food producers, restaurateurs and stakeholders (public and private) involved who promote tourism culinary in the areas. New research shows that the impact of moving gastronomic tourism to the digital space also requires us to examine the current situation and explore research and practical consequences in the post-COVID future.
What for the authors can be identified as gastronomic tourism corresponds to what is the main reason for embarking on a trip.
