Abstract
Using food as a differentiating asset of destinations and its potential in influencing tourists’ travel decisions is being much discussed in academia. Different countries use distinct terms to relate food to tourism. Concepts such as culinary tourism, food tourism and gastronomy tourism are used interchangeably. This paper aims to explore regional innovation strategies based on food and tourism and on how they can contribute to destination management. The study adopts a systematic literature review by focusing on two main databases, namely SCOPUS and ISI Web of Science. In total, 538 articles (from 1985 to 2017) published in English peer-reviewed academic journals were analysed. The systematic review revealed that food and tourism has been approached from varied perspectives, from interactions with traditional protection strategies under European food quality labels, such as Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) and the Protected Geographical Indication (PGI), to innovative actions, which encapsulate the reengineering of places transforming them into creative food spaces or food clusters. Finally, this paper seeks to contribute to the body of knowledge on food and tourism, under the perspective of regional innovation strategies, applying a qualitative systematic literature review of a 27 selected articles within the scope of the research.
Highlights
The role of food tourism in territorial dynamics has become an important issue for local and/or regional development
This paper provides a theoretical background on concepts related to food, tourism and territorial innovation strategies, the main research results and concluding remarks, and provides a discussion on the research limitations and pathways for future research
Everett (2012) found that increasing social and economic pressure have been put on producers to transform traditional productive spaces into touristic consumption places. Concluding remarks This systematic literature review revealed that food clusters and food-tourism networks are considered strategies in innovative territorial development (Boesen, Sundbo, & Sundbo, 2017; Dougherty & Green, 2011; Gyimóthy, 2017; James & Halkier, 2014; Lee et al, 2016; Montanari & Staniscia, 2009; Quaranta et al, 2016; Rinaldi, 2017)
Summary
The role of food tourism in territorial dynamics has become an important issue for local and/or regional development. It is still an RESEARCH PAPER understudied topic, deserving further research, certainly if ever more new establishments associating food and tourism – creative food spaces and food clusters – appear Culinary tourism appears mostly in North American publications, food tourism in Australia and New Zealand and gastronomy tourism in Europe. It is not the scope of this paper to review these concepts in-depth. Food tourism is the terminology applied throughout this paper, the reason being justified later in this paper
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