FOOD TOURISM
The World Food Tourism Association-organised session, entitled Getting Food Tourism Right, attracted nearly 300 people to the 2-hour seminar.
Observations included, that even though the industry is 17 years old, many destination marketers and service providers still don’t understand the full scope of what “food tourism” means and consequently, are not realizing their full business potential. To some, “food tourism” is the mere act of dining out so a list of restaurants seems sufficient. To others, it’s visiting wineries. Food tourism can include those things, but it is usually so much more. To help illustrate the breadth of the food tourism industry and the types of business involved, the World Food Tourism Association (WFTA) session heard from some of the industry’s leading players in food tourism, including Failte Ireland, Eating Europe Food Tours, VizEat, the Piedmont region
of Italy, La Cucina Caldesi Cookery School in London, and Great British Chefs. Attendees heard a little about who food travellers are, what they like and how to get started in the industry. Writing in the WTM Business magazine, Erik Wolf, founder of the WFTA, said, ‘Authenticity is the number one type of food experience that visitors prefer, according to extensive data from the 2013 and 2016 editions of the Food Travel Monitor published by the World Food Travel Association.
Going on to explain how the food tourism consumer is developing, and the notion of ‘authenticity’. ‘Authenticity is just one of as many as 13 available PsychoCulinary profiles, which are like behaviours and preferences exhibited by food lovers. This behaviour has now been distilled down thanks to evidence-based science. Why publicise 180 different types of cuisines in your destination? Visitors aren’t going to travel to India to eat French food, or to Japan to eat American food. Of course, we also like
to eat different types of cuisines but from the perspective of marketing to visitors, the “authenticity” and “local” PsychoCulinary preferences are what gets noticed, remembered and talked about. The good news for destination marketers and food/drink business owners is that authenticity is extremely hard to replicate, meaning people must travel to get a “real taste” of something. ‘Destination marketers have a challenge to help the local food and beverage business owners see the experience through the eyes of a visitor.’
WTM London Review 2017 65
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137
