The Relationship Between Foods and Tourism and Their Implications on the Areas

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As above statement indicated, a growing amount of customers have a strong desire for seeking the original and authentic food sources as well as experience the genuine local culture, which contributes to food tourism to a large degree and it also supports employment and other businesses’ development, including hotel service, transportation service and insurance service, etc. There is no doubt that a customer’s perspective is one of the key drivers for culinary tourism. “Many customers are now more health conscious or want to be more health conscious and are therefore prepared to search for healthier food options, whether this is at a food store or farm. Food deserts still exist in many cities, but this is also gaining more public attention and action is starting to take place to improve health standards. This serves to remind more affluent consumers about the importance of health foods” (Stanley & Stanley, p.18, 2014). This new prevail of eating habit that people have switched to a sustainable economic development, a sustainable society and organic foods has embedded in their minds and affected their behavior. In order to adapt to customers’ changed requirements, restaurants have changed their strategies to cater to travelers’ needs. To be specific, they have built relationship with new suppliers who provide organic and green raw materials and food resources. Some restaurants have developed a few special pure home-made dishes without any chemical additive. From the previous description, we can see that how influential customers’ preference can be. Besides, as a part of customers, foodies (also know as gourmets) have a super powerful voice in food industry, and they can even determine whether the restaurants’ future. Especially, when visitors would like to do researches on the Internet before traveling, those gourmets’ commentaries and remarks have become tremendously important to customers’ decisions. “The key dimensions of being a foodie are found to be identity (i.e. self identification in which a love of cooking and learning about food are central), a concern for quality of produce and meals, social bonding (as in sharing meals and other food-related experience) and conscientiousness (including care with the purchase, preparation and disposal of food)” (Getz et al, p.197, 2014). The most important point from the above statement is that foodie feel obligated to make objective and comprehensive remarks about foods that they eat and they are willing to share their dining experience as well as make recommendation to the public, thus restaurants have to pay attention to every step in the food process. In that sense, gourmet and critics should be respected and honored, because they are our food guardians. Simultaneously, if a restaurant is able to gain a gourmet or a critics’s preference, that will help the business with no doubt.

- Potential Issues under Food Tourism

Despite the accelerating growth in food tourism, there are also some problems that are required to pay attention to and untangle. There are a bunch of constraints for food tourism, including climate change, energy consumption, political turmoil, etc. “Sooner or later one or more of these constraining forces will become a check on growth, or even halt and reverse it. Most of these apply to tourism in general, especially concerns over energy consumption, environment and global climate change” (Getz et al, p.45, 2014). One concern has to be elaborated which is environment. It is not difficult for us to imagine how much the tourism has influenced the local environment. Some areas in order to attract and maintain more customers, they have over explored the local land to build hotels, observation decks, special architectures and varied facilities to offer, which also destroys many wild animals’ dependent habitats. A variety of pollutions discharged into the environment are also needed to be addressed. Additionally, “But health concerns in particular threaten food tourism, including fear: of contaminated food stuff, of genetic modification, of unhealthy eating and drinking habits. If a region experiences environmental or health issues of any kind that can influence perceptions of food safety or quality” (Getz et al, p.45, 2014). The psychological impact is even more powerful, so sustainable and green food concepts should be carried out rather than just words.

Conclusion

Foods are essential to tourism in terms of rural, regional and national levels, and food tourism has become increasingly popular. However, food tourism is not a simple and sole task; it requires collaboration from different sections such as supports from government, community and locals. In addition, visitors’ opinions have an influential voice on food tourism industry, which should be studied and utilized by restaurant owners. As a nation, food tourism should be valued and explored appropriately, with feasible and scientific plans and strategies. More importantly, environment preservation is the top priority that is supposed to be considered.

During the development, we inevitably will encounter with all kinds of issues. As long as we are aware of them and develop pragmatic solutions to dealing with them, we should have faith in ourselves and our future.

References

Getz, D., Robinson, R., Andersson, T., & Vujicic, S. (2014). Foodies and food tourism. Oxford: Goodfellow Publishers Ltd.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tourism_rankings

Publishing, O. (2012). Food and the tourism experience. Paris: OECD Publishing.

Stanley, J.; Stanley, L. (2014). Food Tourism : A Practical Marketing Guide. Wallingford: CABI. Retrieved from http://www.eblib.com

Sánchez-Cañizares, S. M., & López-Guzmán, T. (2012). Gastronomy as a tourism resource: Profile of the culinary tourist. Current Issues in Tourism, 15(3), 229-17. doi:10.1080/13683500.2011.589895

Yeoman, I. (2008, Aug11). Why Food Tourism Is Becoming More Important? Retrieved from: http://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/4037197.html.