A Contemporary systematic literature review of gastronomy tourism and destination image

Abstract

ABSTRACT Gastronomy tourism experiences are growing in the tourism industry, and there has been an increase in the number of tourists that travel primarily to experience food and related culture. Furthermore, Destination Marketing Organisations have increasingly been using local cuisine as a distinguishing feature in marketing a destination. Despite the growing interest in this field of tourism, there is a paucity of research regarding the importance and implications of food tourism on destination image. Thus, this study comprises a systematic quantitative literature review on these topics, which summarises the current knowledge on these areas and identifies the potential for future research. This paper reports on findings from a review of 54 peer-reviewed studies that focused on gastronomy tourism and destination image from 2003 to October 2020. The findings reveal evolving trends in this field of study, namely, the dominant study location is Asia, limited use of theory, quantitative approach is the most frequently used method and the majority of studies examined the topic from tourists’ perspectives.